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Post by Shinko on Aug 20, 2014 15:34:16 GMT -5
Canon Universe StoriesFigured it was about time I consolidated these. Going to round up all of my existing fics here, and post any new ones here in the future. Anyone who likes is free to post in this thread if they have comments they'd like to make! I'll organize these in chronological order on these first two master-posts, with new stories being added in a separate post at the bottom. I'll leave new stories up for a week or two before moving them up to the masterpost (though I'll leave the post where they were first added originally for posterity to keep the original likes.) Dangers of the SwampThe full moon rode high in the clear night sky, a thousand glittering stars set around it like a diamond studded tapestry. In the boggy landscape below, crickets and frogs sang out the midnight chorus, accompanied by the soft burble of flowing water and the occasional rustle of the reeds. It was picturesque, beautiful, and it was all a deceptive lie. The knight who was currently mired an inch in the soggy bank knew that from hard experience.
Belial hated the swamps of southern Corvus. They were hot, insect ridden, and most of all, damp. The humidity was cloying, it made the already oppressive heat worse and the air felt like soup as it poured into his lungs. There wasn’t a breath of wind to offer any relief; the night air was stiflingly still. He sweated under his armor, and instead of evaporating in the heat the humidity made the sweat cling to him. The elven knight felt like his entire body was enveloped in a sticky wet film, making his gambeson cling to his skin.
Most hazardous of all was the wildlife. Any of the half rotten logs floating in the water could be an crocodile, that rustling in the reeds had as much chance of being a venomous snake as a fish, and of course, there were the wyverns.
Wyverns were actually why the knight was here. They were two legged draconic creatures that seldom got larger than the average pony, but made up for it by hunting in packs. They thrived in the swampland, swimming as easily as the crocodiles and taking immense pleasure in the heat. Most wyverns lived far from human settlements, eating fish and occasionally herons or ducks. But a small pack of them had come into this area, very close to the human village of Cypress Springs. Shepherds were losing sheep, hogs, and cattle to the monsters, and with Solis too far to reach they’d called upon the knights of Nid’aigle to help.
Of course, the knights couldn’t just kill the wyverns; that wouldn’t entirely be fair, the creatures were just doing what came naturally. No, their hope was that if they put up a resistance for long enough, the wyverns would get discouraged and seek easier hunting elsewhere.
Two months now the company had been staying in Cypress Springs, and aside from the occasional skirmish with the wyverns had been a largely uneventful trip. This tiny hamlet in the swamp had a population of about fifty people all told. At first it had been interesting for Belial to observe them- he’d always been fascinated by human culture and a cut off place like this tended to develop it’s own eccentric customs. For one thing, everyone in Cypress Springs, regardless of gender, wore a thin veil over their eyes. But it hadn’t taken long for the novelty to wear off, and most of the people had been isolated for so long that they were actually a bit intimidated by the presence of “mythical” elves.
Most, but not all. There had been a few curious people who came to talk to them, and one woman in particular who actually decided to amuse herself at their expense. For a good long while the knights had been plagued by innumerable harmless but annoying pranks, until Belial managed to catch the culprit in the act. He’d been amused enough by her antics not to try and stop her, but she seemed to feel that erring on the side of caution was better and hadn’t tried again since that day.
Belial was distracted from his thoughts by a flicker of light in his peripheral vision. He glanced around just in time to see a faintly jostling glow through the trees- a lantern? It must have been, though he hadn’t realized it was time for his shift to end. Relieved, he turned and began to walk towards the approaching knight to greet them.
The light paused for a moment, as if it’s holder had noticed something and frozen. Then, to Belial’s surprise, the other knight turned and began to head in the opposite direction, the light growing dimmer as it moved away. Had they spotted something? Was there trouble? Belial picked up his pace, following the other knight as silently as he could so as not to alert whatever they were going after.
The other knight was running now, and Belial felt a shiver run down his spine. It was obvious something was badly wrong. The elf ran too, straining to keep that distant lantern in sight. Branches whipped at his face, water from the mire below splashed up to his knees, but he barely noticed. He wasn’t really thinking anymore, just reacting. His mind had gone almost numb, every fiber of his being focused on the fact that he had to catch up, had to help his comrade, had to follow, had to follow, had to follow-
A loud, piercing noise exploded in his ears, and he cried out in pain. Slapping his hands to the place on his helmet over his ears, he stumbled and fell to his knees. It was so loud, so unbearably loud after the previous silence-
Wait, silence? But the swamp was so noisy…
Belial felt like someone had poured molten lead into his skull and he had to swim through it to form any sort of coherent thought. His head ached ferociously, the pain only trumped by the lingering ringing in his ears.
“Sorry about that,” a slightly breathless female voice remarked. “I know it’s like having a knife shoved in your ears, but a few more meters and you’d have walked right into a crocodile pit.”
“I… I what?” Belial said blearily in Elvish, too dazed still to form a coherent sentence in Kythian. The speaker tutted softly, and a few seconds later he felt a thin itchy fabric being pushed into his face. Almost as soon as it touched his skin, the haze over his thoughts vanished and he felt completely normal.
“Better?” she asked sardonically. Belial looked up, and was astonished to find a human face looking back down at him. Not just any human- the young prank-playing woman who he’d spoken to not a week prior.
“Much,” he said. “What happened?”
The girl snorted. “You tore off after a will-o-the-wisp, sirrah. Cursed tricky blighters, I’m surprised this is the first one that’s troubled you.” She pointed at the veil she’d placed over his eyes- her veil, Belial realized, because she was no longer wearing one. “You don’t think we wear these as a fashion statement, do you? It’s far too hot for that. They’re magiced to protect us from falling into the thrall of a wisp.”
“I… I see,” the knight said, his eyes widening with fascination. “And that noise I heard?”
She pulled a small clay whistle out of a basket on her arm. “We always carry these when we go into the swamp. They’ve a sound amplifying spell on them, to make them loud enough to be heard even by someone in the wisp’s power. It’s the only way we’ve found to snap someone out of it short of knocking them out entirely.”
Belial shook his head. “I suppose I must thank you, Madame. I would very likely have been dead just now if you hadn’t come to my rescue.”
The woman chuckled. “We’re all Kythians, eh? Besides, you didn’t get me in trouble with your pals when you very well could have. Exploding your eardrums is the least I could do to thank you.”
The elf laughed, shoving himself to his feet. “What were you doing out here, anyway? It is rather late for a walk.”
“I owed the apothecary a favor,” she replied tilting her basket so that the elf could see it’s contents. “There are certain medicinal flowers he insists must be picked by the light of the full moon, and he’s too old to wander the swamps even in broad daylight anymore.”
“Well it was fortuitous for me that you repay your favors,” The elf said ruefully. “I shall have to see about acquiring more of these veils for the others- I suppose we should have asked about them sooner, but it hadn’t occurred to us that it was anything more than human eccentricity.”
“And we assumed you had your own elfy way of dealing with the wisps,” the woman replied. Belial laughed outright at that.
“Well, perhaps once my shift has ended you and I should have a longer conversation. I suspect both of us could benefit from making fewer assumptions about each other. And I’ll need to return your veil.”
The woman seemed surprised, but then she grinned. “Certainly, sirrah. Just ask around town for Morgaine Folet- you’ll find me.”
“Very well Morgaine, I shall,” he said, nodding politely. “And please, call me Belial.” CountingIt was late in the evening, in a small town on the eastern border of Corvus. Most of the inhabitants were no longer up and about. That was good- they always stared when the elvenborn came into their town, despite being right on the border of the Elflands. Even this particular elvenborn, who visited the town at least twice a week.
Belial leaned heavily against his gelding’s neck, relying on the clever animal’s own will to get him where he needed to go. Certainly the elf was in no shape to give his chestnut destrier directions. It was everything he could do not to pass out from the pain in his gauze-wrapped thigh.
Perhaps riding three miles with a sword wound right where flesh meets saddle was not such a good idea, he thought ruefully. Sweat matted his short-cropped blonde hair, plastering his somewhat longer bangs to his face. His skin, already pale by human standards, was ghostly white from earlier blood loss. His pale brown eyes, which sparkled like chips of amber in the daylight, where half-lidded and dull with fatigue.
The commander was going to eviscerate Belial when she found out about this. She’d given him strict orders to stay in bed until his wound healed. And of course she had the right of it- he did no one any favors by sneaking off to the human town, least of all himself.
But driven by a need that even he could not fully comprehend, he had done exactly that. His destrier, Warblade, hadn’t been happy about it, but the loyal creature had eventually complied with his request. And now here they were, in front of the familiar building where his dear friend Morgaine Folet was undergoing an apprenticeship under the town locksmith.
The lights were still on inside, which was a relief. His particular community of elves were absolute sticklers for manners. Good conduct would not have allowed him to awaken the house if it’s inhabitants were already asleep, and he doubted he’d be able to stay conscious in the saddle long enough to find the inn. Inching out of the saddle in the tiniest of increments, gasping as bolts of agony shot up his wounded calf, he finally dismounted. He leaned against Warblade’s neck like a crutch, and gave three knocks on the door. It swung open a moment later, revealing a round face framed by a large blue head scarf that only one or two stray clumps of black hair escaped from.
“We’re clo-” Morgaine started to say, but stopped dead when she saw who it was. “Belial? Wha- do you have any idea how late it is?”
“I have an idea,” he replied with a wan grin, his elvish accent giving the words a light, whispery quality; trilling the “r,” dropping the “h,” entirely and mangling the “th.” “Is this a bad time?”
She continued to stare at the elven man as if he’d grown horns. Belial couldn’t really blame her for that- he’d never sprung on her so unexpectedly before, and certainly he’d never come upon her in her home this late at night. It was entirely improper. But for some reason tonight he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.
Suddenly, the young woman’s widened, and she recoiled. “You’re bleeding!”
He looked down in surprise, to see that she was right. He hadn’t noticed in the dark, but at some point during the trip it seemed that his wound had opened up again. A dark red stain was spreading across the leg of his pants, and he winced. “So it would seem. That would explain why I feel as if I’m about to pass out. Might… might I come in?”
The last emerged more plaintively than he’d intended. Something in his voice seemed to register with the human woman, because she nodded. “Right. I’ll get Master Smithson to send for a healer. In you get.”
Despite being much shorter than Belial, she managed to carry him into the building and help him sit down on a chair inside. As the master locksmith ran out to fetch help, she pressed a rag to his leg.
“Why didn’t your own healers deal with this yet?” she demanded. “It’s deep, but it can’t be more than a flesh wound or you wouldn’t have made it this far on your own.”
“There were many others hurt much worse,” he explained. “They are worn out. My dear friend, you need not go to the expense of a human healer on my behalf, I will be fine soon enough.”
“Hush,” she ordered sternly. “The fact that you’re here at all in your condition, this late at night, is proof enough that you’re in no fit state to make decisions. Consider any opinions you voice regarding your own well being duly disregarded.”
He chuckled at that, but it was a pained sound. The girl looked up at him, the irritation in her face melting into concern.
“What are you doing here, anyway? I take it you didn’t just come to say hi- you know we’ve no place to stable ‘Blade.”
“Warblade will manage on his own, he is not elvenbred but he is still a very smart horse,” the elf replied absently.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
The elf looked up, meeting her dark brown eyes with his bright amber ones. There was pain in those eyes, pain that he could not mask for his human friend as he usually did. “I have lost count.”
“Lost… count?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “Three hundred and twenty-six years I have kept count, but after the mercenary raid two days ago, I finally lost track.”
Morgaine raised an eyebrow. “Of what exactly.”
“Of… of how many people I’ve killed.”
She stared at him, shocked. He wanted to look away- he didn’t want to see the look on Morgaine’s face at this confession. But this was why he was here, and it would be cowardly to turn away now.
“I never told anyone I was counting before,” he said. “But I felt like I had an… I cannot think of the human word. Obl… ob…”
“Obligation?” Morgaine offered, and Belial nodded.
“I felt that I had an obligation to keep track. A tally of my own sins, as it were. Of the lives that were cut down by my own hands. The knowing helped me feel better, as if I could atone as long as I knew how much I owed.”
“You always spoke as if you loved being a knight,” Morgaine remarked softly. “I’d never have assumed it gave you so much grief.”
“Morgaine,” he said, “When first I began visiting the human town, it was because it helped me to feel better. You humans have such short lives, and so you do not waste a moment of them. You dance, you sing, you swill cheap mead at the taverns- maybe to you this is normal, but for me it is a very liberated way to live. It is not so in the elven lands, where we may live on for centuries.”
The young woman pointed at his leg, her expression wry. “I don’t think you’re going to be enjoying any liberating human dancing with this injury.”
“No, but I only said that this was why I first started coming,” he pointed out. “I kept coming because I met you, and you are the best friend I could have ever asked for- a better friend than anyone I know in the elven lands.”
She laughed outright at this, and tweaked his nose, “I see. You wanted to vent.”
“To… what?” Belial said, not recognizing the human word.
“To talk about what’s been bothering you to someone you trust, and get it off your chest,” she elaborated. “The word usually means to let off pressure in an enclosed space. I would imagine that over three hundred years of bottling your guilt would cause a lot of pressure to build up.”
Belial smiled, his eyes twinkling with good humor. “You are unaccountably wise tonight, Morgaine. One might almost forget that you are an ignorant, uncivilized, short lived human.”
“And if you keep making fun of me, I might forget you’re a stuffy, formal, overly polite elf,” she retorted. Looking down at his leg she grunted. “I think the bleeding’s stopped, for now anyway. Hopefully Master Smithson will be back with the healer soon, and we can patch it up properly. Next time, just have a courier send for me, alright? Only think how upset your commander would be if you died on Warblade’s back trying to come and see me. She would come to give me a lecture, but I wouldn’t take one from her and we’d end up having the world’s most polite shouting match in the middle of the street.”
The elf covered his face with a hand, shoulders shaking as he tried to stifle a laugh at this mental image. In a gentler voice, Morgaine added, “Feeling better?”
“Much,” he replied. “You are a most peculiar human, Morgaine; please don’t ever change.”
She fluttered her fingers at him, like a fine lady given a compliment. Then the door opened, and she stood to greet the healer. Drunken Conversations“And, and so it’sh like a tree, right? The leavesh turn brown and fall off in the winter, but then after the shnow comes shpring. Maaan, I wish we had shnow here, I’d like to shee it jusht oncesh. Oncesh, ish that too much t’ ashk? Like, white everything!”
Morgaine Folet, seventeen year old apprentice to the town locksmith, brought her mug up to her face only to realize it was empty. With a short laugh, she lifted it into the air for the barkeep to refill. Her face was brilliantly flushed, and her dark brown eyes badly out of focus.
“My friend, if you drink much more you are going to very much regret it tomorrow morning,” remarked the elven man sitting beside her. Unlike Morgaine he was more or less sober, having nursed the same small mug of ale for the past two hours.
“C’mon Belial, don’t be a shtick in th’ mud,” she retorted, grinning at him. “Tonight Imma have shome fun. I’ll deal with tomorrow, tomorrow.”
She slammed her hand on the table for emphasis, nearly losing her balance and falling from her stool in the process. Belial caught her around the shoulder before she fell, and she leaned into his arms with a giggle.
“A knight in shining armor even when yer not on duty, eh?”
The man felt a flush creep over his cheeks as Morgaine’s face pressed into his shirt, and he hastily helped her upright again. A gentle smile quirked at the corner of his mouth as he replied, “The habits of three hundred years are hard to break.”
It was hard for Belial to fathom that it had only been a year and a half since he’d met the strange human woman called Morgaine Folet. He already felt as if he’d known her forever, and they’d been friends for all of that time. Which was odd, considering that the elven man didn’t get close to people very easily.
When Belial was a child, most people thought he’d have a great many friends. He was gentle, soft spoken, even-tempered, and endlessly outgoing. He never had any issues approaching strangers, and was forever asking questions and observing the world with wide, curious eyes. He’d even gone out of his way to learn to speak Kythian during his page training, so that he could better communicate with the humans in the nearby village of Kolanth and ply them with as many questions as he did his fellow elves.
But then he’d become a squire, acting in service to a real knight. The first real battle, the first time he actually had to kill someone by his own hand… that was when everything changed.
It had been hard. So much harder than he’d expected. It left him feeling foul and sticky, even long after the blood had been washed off. He knew killing was normal, something all knights had to do. He knew that, and yet he couldn’t shake that feeling of uncleanness in his soul. He began to avoid the other elves at that point, interacting only with his company and on occasion his parents. He started keeping a count of the people he’d killed, irrationally reasoning that if he knew how many there were and accounted for every one, he wasn’t a monster.
It was about a century into his life when he started to spend most of his free time in Kolanth instead of Nid’aigle. To the humans in Kolanth life was measured in decades, not in centuries as it was for the elves. The cultural differences wrought by this shortened lifespan made humans much more forward and open as a species then Belial’s own people, and the simple rush of them trying to fit as much good into their short lives as possible was like a balm for the knight’s bruised soul. The elvenborn very seldom had celebrations on a large scale, and usually holidays were somber rather than riotous. The humans though, they laughed, sang, drank, loved, got married, had children…
The children in particular always made Belial smile. Their carefree innocence was cheering, and there were so many of them. In Nid’aigle it was rare for there to be more than four children total at any one time, if that many.
But for the most part Belial didn’t really intervene in the doings of the human town. He just watched, standing off to one side by himself. As one century of life became two, and then three, he turned into almost a landmark in the village. That eccentric elf man who watched everything, but said and did little.
He’d met Morgaine on assignment in a small swamp village to the south, Cypress Springs. She’d made an impression on him during his time there- she was something of a black sheep. Forthright even by human standards, she seldom had an opinion she didn’t voice and more often than not the opinion would come across as an insult. She was also far too intelligent for her own good, and in the absence of anything to keep her mind occupied had taken to playing pranks on her fellow villagers. Even the elven knights had fallen victim to her games, until Belial caught her at it. One thing led to another, and the two of them had done well to keep each other entertained with stories about each other’s lives and cultures.
She’d left Cypress Springs to start an apprenticeship elsewhere, two weeks before Belial’s company left it. The elf hadn’t expected to ever see her again, and though it was a shame he hadn’t thought much on it. He barely knew the woman after all.
Imagine their mutual surprise then, when it turned out that the place she’d secured an apprenticeship was the selfsame village of Kolanth where Belial was a well known community landmark
“Hey, how come you never drink much?” Morgaine asked, interrupting his thoughts. “It’sh not like anyone from yer company’sh her to shee.”
“If I did that, who would carry you home at the end of the night?” Belial asked tartly, but with a grin to soften the verbal blow.
“I’ll walk home tonight. I will, watch me.”
“Och, ye say that every time,” remarked the barkeeper. “Yer in here every week, and every week that poor elf has to carry your behind home. Tonight’s not gonna be any different, Madame Folet.”
“Huuuuuush,” Morgaine replied, waving a hand dismissively. “He doeshn’t have to. He doesh it becaushe he’sh a gentlemen. Ishn’t that right?”
Belial tilted his head impishly. “Do you want me to answer that question honestly, or humor your delusions?”
“Bah, and I thought you were on my side,” she grumbled cheerfully, taking another swig.
As the barkeeper shook his head and walked away, Morgaine turned back to Belial. There was an oddly serious look on her alcohol flushed face. "I wash ashking for real though- how come you don't drink? How come you don't have fun? You... you shaid that one time you like to come here becaushe humansh are more fun... more funner? Ish that right? Anyway, if you like human fun, how come you don't have any fun yourshelf?"
The question surprised Belial. It was true; he had admitted his real reason for coming to the town to Morgaine, one night in a moment of emotional vulnerability. She'd not brought it up since, presumably guessing he didn't want to dwell on it, but it seemed the ale she'd imbibed had boldened her.
"Is this really a conversation you want to have right now?" he asked her. "You're here to have fun. Besides, you're not exactly in much of a state for a serious discussion."
Morgaine looked up at the ceiling, seeming to ponder this. Finally she said, "You're my besht friend, Belial. If you're not having a good time, I'm not either."
The elf shook his head, a patient smile creasing his face. "You are an extortionist."
"And proud of it."
"Very well," Belial said. "The truth is I don't drink because I am afraid to. In most people alcohol just makes them act rediculous. It's fun, and generally harmless save for the hangover later. But there are different kinds of drunks. Some people drink and become very depressed. And some people become... violent."
He looked away. "I have seen these violent drunks become angry over inane things, and pick rather brutal fights. And I ask myself, what if I became like that? I am not a random person off the street, I am a soldier who carries a weapon for self defense at all times. If I lost control of myself and got into a fight with someone... I could very well kill them. And apologies mean nothing to a dead innocent."
Morgaine looked rather shocked, but then her expression turned sad. Belial shook his head and smiled, prodding the human woman in the side of the head. "Do not take it for more than it is, Morgaine. It is a precaution, nothing more. I do not need to become drunk and out of control to have fun. After all, you only do so what, once a week? You find other ways to entertain yourself for the rest of the time, and I can do the same."
The woman laughed, and to Belial's surprise she slumped over sideways so that she was leaning on his shoulder. "I guessh I can't argue with that logic. I'll jusht have to get drunk enough for the both of ush!"
"Oh, no," he said firmly, though his eyes danced with amusement. "You're quite done. That mug is your fifth tonight, and it will be your last."
"You can tell me what to dooooo!" she argued, but the way she was burrowing her nose in his sleeve gave the lie to her words. She'd be unconscious within half an hour, if she lasted that long. The elf gently but firmly pushed her upright, trying to ignore the warm flush that was creeping across his face again.
"On second thought, don't finish that," he said with a nervous laugh. "Come on, up you get."
She muttered something incomprehensible, but complied. In spite of her earlier claim, a few stumbling steps were sufficient to prove that she was not going to get back to the lock shop under her own power. Mutely, Belial knelt down so that she could sprawl across his back.
"Good thing for yeh Miss Folet's so tiny," remarked the barkeeper, having come back around to watch the proceedings. "I bet she's like a feather even weighed down with so much ale."
"I heard that," Morgaine slurred. Belial only shook his head and left a few coins on the counter.
"Goodnight, sirrah. We'll probably see you again at the usual time next week."
"Look forward to it," the barkeeper said with a chuckle.
As the two of them exited the bar and started down the road that would take them to the lock shop, Belial cleared his throat.
“Morgaine… thank you. For understanding about my drinking and not pushing the matter.”
There was a slight movement behind him- was she shrugging? “Dunno why you’d think I would,” she said. “I ashked a simple queshtion, you gave a valid answer. Nothing more to it.”
“You would be surprised,” Belial replied dryly. “My friends in Nid’aigle do not see it as merely a precaution. They think my discomfort is sign that something is wrong with me, and they want to ‘fix’ it. It’s actually rather annoying.”
Morgaine set her chin down on the elf’s shoulder, so that her voice sounded almost directly into his ear. “I don’t believe in that. I don’t ‘fix’ people. If they’re doing shomething shtupid, or dangeroush, then I’ll try and stop ‘em. If not, it’sh none of my buisnessh what they do, unlessh they make it my buisnessh.”
She leaned her head against his, her voice barely a murmur now. “And shtop thanking me for everything all the time. We’re friendsh, helping each other and lishening to each other’sh problemsh is what we’re shupposed to do.”
“Perhaps,” Belial said, smiling indulgently as some of Morgaine’s black hair fell into his face. “But I should rather not ever come to a point where I take it for granted.”
“You’re weird,” the woman informed him. “And I am not nearly shober enough for thish convershation.”
“Of course, I’m sorry. Shall we have it tomorrow when your skull is split like a melon?”
“You can go jump in the ‘Pit.”
By the time the lock shop was in view, Belial could tell by the steadiness of her breathing that Morgaine had fallen asleep. There was a small, traitorous part of him that didn’t want to take her back, that wanted to keep walking around the city with her arms around his shoulders until the coming dawn. But that was foolish, and highly unchivalrous besides.
“I am an idiot, Morgaine,” he murmured softly, in Elvish he knew she could not understand even if she’d been awake, “I think I’ve fallen in with love you.” The Elf CityThe market square of Kolanth was busy, as it always was around midmorning. The afternoons were too hot for most people to be outside, and anyone with business got it over with before the anvil of the sun reached it’s zenith. All around the well in the center people mingled, haggling with merchants and talking with friends.
Two people in particular had taken up seats on the cobbles right below the well, leaning against it for support. One was a small human woman with black hair pulled back by a blue sash. The other was an elven man with blonde hair and the badge of a knight pinned to his vest.
“Almost, you almost have it,” Belial said encouragingly. “Try pressing your tongue against your teeth, it helps. Really vibrate the back of your throat when you make the ‘r’ sound.”
“I’m trying,” Morgaine muttered. “It’s harder when I’m doing it in actual words.”
“Of course, in casual speech you default to old habits,” The elf replied with amusement. “This is why we practice. Try again.”
The locksmith apprentice sighed, and once again began vibrating her tongue in a long, drawn out “Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” Belial put a hand over his mouth to hide a smile at the look of fierce concentration on her face, but she noticed and scowled.
“Are you actually teaching me Elvish or just making fun of me?” she demanded crossly.
“Trust me, this is how it is done. I have just never tried to teach it before, and it had not occurred to me how difficult certain sounds would be to you. I would be lying if I said it was not amusing to watch you glare at the bridge of your nose as if to intimidate it into making your tongue behave.”
Morgaine swatted at the elf’s arm, and he took the blow with a good humored laugh. After a moment the human woman unbent enough to give a sardonic return smile.
“Belial, I’ve actually been meaning to ask you something…”
“Oh?” he said, tilting his head. “Then by all means, ask.”
“D’you… d’you think I could visit the elf city?”
The question startled Belial and for a moment he just stared at her. “Ah… Nid’aigle? Why?”
She shrugged. “Well you come here all the time and see what human life is like. I’d like to see where you’re from. Why, is that a problem? Are humans not allowed?”
“Ah, no of course not,” he said quickly. “There is no rule that forbids visitors to come to the city. Most simply avoid it because the inevitable language barrier forestalls any effective tourism. It may not be terribly obvious but I’m something of an outlier amongst my kind. Very few of the elves in Nid’aigle understand or speak Kythian; in fact most never set foot beyond the boundaries of our territory at all.”
The woman pondered this in silence, as she usually did when Belial handed her a piece of information or a question she didn’t have an immediate answer for. The elf loved that about her- she didn’t jump to conclusions or stubbornly steam ahead without considering counter-arguments. When there was a problem, she examined it from all sides until she had an intelligent, honest response to offer.
Then again, her intelligence was far from the only thing Belial loved about the human woman. Her willingness to explore new ideas, her penchant for mischief, her sincerely caring nature… he loved everything about Morgaine. All she had to do was smile at him and he’d feel his face warming with pleasure and embarrassment. While he’d certainly had his infatuations as a teenager, this was utterly unlike anything Belial had experienced in all his three hundred years.
And he had not the courage to tell her. He, who stood in knightly armor and faced down slavers, bandits and monsters, could not coherently formulate three simple words to tell Morgaine how much she meant to him.
“Would it bother anyone if I was there?” She asked finally.
“I doubt anyone would care particularly,” he replied dryly. “They might stare at you, though only covertly when they thought you would not notice. But most likely they would not care to stir themselves from their daily routines long enough to take offense to your presence, even if they were so inclined.”
She looked at him oddly. “You don’t seem to think very highly of them.”
Belial shook his head with a sigh. “It is less that- I respect my people for their devotion to culture and their love of peace. But I also acknowledge that their way of life is contributing to their decline. Elves used to be one of the dominant species of this world; now our cities are few and far flung. Though most would not agree with me, if I had to take a guess I’d wager that in another thousand years you will see only a few lone elves living among humans, our culture forgotten and our species dying out.”
“That’s… heavy,” Morgaine said softly. “I’m sorry for bringing it up Belial, forget what I said. It was stupid of me to ask.”
Realizing what he’d just said, the elf winced. “Ack, I’m sorry Morgaine. That had nothing to do with your request, I was just projecting. You didn’t deserve that.”
“Hey, what did I say about venting?” Morgaine pointed out. “You need to get that sort of thing off your chest, or it’ll eat you from the inside. You carry my drunk butt home from the bar every week, the least I can do is listen to you when you’re unhappy.”
“I should like to think I could contribute more to our friendship than playing the saddle horse and depressing you,” he replied dryly.
“Hm. Well your back is warm and cozy. Does that count?”
The elf knew his face must have lit up like a beacon, because Morgaine suddenly doubled over with laughter. “You’re so chivalrous, it’s adorable. It’s almost not fair to make fun of you when you make it so easy.”
The knight buried his face in his hands, muttering something inaudible. That only made Morgaine laugh harder, and he looked up at her with a mock glare.
“You know what? I think I will take you to Nid’aigle. It seems to me that awkwardly traipsing around a city where you don’t know the language may be the only method I can employ to make you as uncomfortable as you so frequently and casually make me.”
The woman laughed. “Hit me with your best shot.”
* * * * *
In spite of Belial’s joke about using the visit to Nid’aigle to make Morgaine feel awkward, when finally he followed up on the promised visit two weeks later it had been surprisingly pleasant for the both of them. Morgaine’s first sight of the elflands left her completely breathless, much to Belial’s obvious amusement.
The city had been built around a wide but slow-flowing river, and many of the buildings in the center had actually extended until they were actually half over the river on stilts. While at first the city seemed to be largely overgrown with trees and bushes, a second glance revealed that this forested appearance was entirely intentional and that the actual streets in the town were kept meticulously clear. When she asked, Belial confirmed that the plantlife in the town was all deliberately positioned and cared for by a group of elves whose job it was to maintain them. Every major road in the city crossed the river at some point, so that there were bridges at regular intervals. There were also a good few elves that were rowing boats and canoes down the river, using it as a more convenient means of getting from point A to point B.
Once she’d had her fill of gawking from the outside, Belial took her into the public buildings and let her poke around in them, explaining as much as he himself knew and translating questions for her when there was something he couldn’t answer. The elves they spoke to were as coolly polite as the ones who’d visited Morgaine’s hometown of Cypress Springs had been over a year prior, and given the lengths of some of their answers compared to the length of Belial’s translations, Morgaine got the impression her friend was doing a lot of paraphrasing. Though to her amusement a few of them actually returned her questions with some of their own about humans.
Then he showed her his own house. He made his home on the southern outskirts of the town, where there weren’t as many others around. Belial explained that this was partially because he liked the quiet, and partially because it was simply more strategic for a knight that was supposed to protect the city to live close to where danger would try to invade. It wasn’t a very big place- only one floor, with two rooms inside- but it didn’t need to be since he lived in it alone. It was situated right on the edge of the river, with it’s own small dock reaching out into the water. The two of them walked out onto the dock, listening to the sound of the river and the birdsong overhead.
“Your city is beautiful, Belial,” she said softly. “I’m glad you brought me here.”
“And I am glad you enjoyed yourself,” he replied. “Though it is a shame you could not ask as much as you might have liked. My expertise in topics outside of the military is rather lacking, I’m afraid.”
She waved a hand. “I’m learning to speak Elvish, aren’t I? I’ll come back one day once I have a better handle on the language, and then I’ll ask as much as I like.”
The knight chuckled, “I look forward to seeing my neighbor’s reactions to that. It is not often a human bothers to learn elvish, so they take it somewhat for granted that they can use our language and not be understood.”
“Oh, really? What, were they insulting me and you just didn’t translate it?”
“Wha- no! Well, not directly, they all have a sort of condescension about them where humans are concerned, it’s inevitable, but…”
He trailed off, his expression darkening. Morgaine was reminded of the common stereotype among humans that elves were almost universally stuck-up and considered themselves superior to humans in particular. Upon getting to know Belial she’d more or less dismissed that as unsubstantiated rumor, but now she couldn’t help wondering if there was more truth to it then she’d realized.
Belial seemed to spend an awful lot of his time being apologetic for his species, now that she thought of it. It was baffling, like he thought somehow he had to account for the disappointment of the fact that the elves weren’t perfect. But no one was perfect- certainly humanity had it’s share of flaws, and could indulge in some decidedly self-destructive habits. Morgaine knew that as well as anyone, and she wasn’t about to judge the elves by a higher standard.
Then again, humans weren’t hovering obliviously on the verge of extinction like the elves seemed to be doing…
She looked back down at her reflection on the water, wishing there was something she could do- some comfort she could offer her friend. But as long as she was a human and lived among humans there would always be that barrier to real understanding for her. Belial had spent three centuries learning about humans from watching them- all Morgaine knew about the elves she’d learned secondhand.
Thinking of Belial’s visits to the human town suddenly gave Morgaine an idea, and she glanced sidelong at her companion.
“Belial, how heavy are your boots?”
He looked up at her, plainly baffled by the sudden, contextless query. “I, uh… not very, but why-”
Before the question had fully escaped from Belial’s mouth, Morgaine grabbed his arm and gave it a hard yank, flinging herself backwards over the edge of the dock as she did so. The elf was too startled to do more than cry out in surprise, and both he and Morgaine plunged into the river.
Almost as soon as Morgaine hit the water, she could feel her skirts becoming saturated and heavy. She kicked off her own shoes, letting them sink to the bottom as she shot towards the surface. Belial had come back up a few seconds ahead of her, and to her relief he was laughing.
“You are incorrigible, woman!” he shouted between gasping for air, aiming a splash at his friend’s head. Morgaine turned aside, bringing up a hand to shield her face, and grinned in reply.
“If it isn’t broken, why fix it?” she asked. Belial shook his head, giving her what could only be described as a feral grin.
“We’ll see about fixing, now won’t we?” he said cryptically. His head vanished under the water, and before Morgaine could do more than flail around to see where he’d vanished the knight came up behind her and grabbed both shoulders. She had enough sense to hold her breath before Belial drove her head beneath the surface. He released her almost immediately, kicking away as she bobbed back upwards with a gasp. However, he did not surface, instead remaining below the murky surface while Morgaine tried in vain to pinpoint him. Just as she was starting to become sincerely worried, a tremendous splashing behind her warned that she needed to hold her breath again, and she was driven under once more.
This time when she came up gasping, the elf surfaced too, looking not nearly as breathless as he should have been for staying underwater more than a minute.
“If I’d known you were an half-fish I might not have tried battling you in this particular field,” Morgaine remarked, pulling off the headband which had started slipping after her repeated ducking.
“Well that goes to show that you shouldn’t engage the enemy without doing your proper research,” he replied, gliding around her in the water effortlessly. “The city is built over and around a river, one would imagine that at some point in my three-hundred years I’d have learned to swim.”
“Sure, bring logic into it,” she groused, splashing at him. He laughed, splashing her back, and soon the both of them were engaged in an enthusiastic water war. This escalated into a game of water-tag, with each of them trying to duck the other under the water to establish who was “it.” Only after almost an hour had passed did Morgaine admit defeat, crawling up onto the bank in exhaustion. Belial followed, looking only slightly warmed up.
“Stop, I surrender!” she gasped, laughing. “I should have known I couldn’t out-stamina a knight. You win, I lose, I am your prisoner of war.”
“What, is that really all?” he asked cheekily, before plopping down in the grass beside her. She stuck her tongue out at him, before pulling out the ties that held her hair in it’s bun. It tumbled out to it’s natural length, just past her shoulder blades, and she tilted her head back to let it dry in the sun.
“I don’t know what your plans were for getting home, but I know you didn’t bring a change of clothes with you,” Belial remarked with a smirk. “What do you intend to do, bake in the sun until all three layers of your skirts are dry?”
“I might just do that,” she said, winking at him. “The likelihood of the elven tailors having anything available in a size tiny is probably not all that high.”
“No, probably not,” he admitted. “I suppose this means you’ll be staying for supper then; perhaps I can find a place in the city to indulge us, and laugh when you can’t read any of the menu items.”
“I’ll pick something at random,” she announced. “I live for adventure. I just hope no one minds if I leave my hair down in the restaurant, I doubt I’ll get it back into the tie after it’s dried.”
“You know, I think you should wear your hair down more often,” the elf said, reaching out a hand to brush a stray strand away from her face. “It’s very becoming.”
Morgaine was startled by this remark, and she felt an odd prickling of flattery and embarrassment at it. More discomfiting than just the statement, though, was the tenderness in his expression as he said it. Some of her confusion must have shown in her face, because Belial seemed to realize what he’d just said and yanked his hand back like he’d been burned.
“I-I’m sorry, that was unchivalrously forward! Great Woo above, Morgaine I hardly know what to say, I just-”
“Did you really mean that?”
His rambling was cut off, and he looked at her blankly. Clearly whatever reaction he’d been expecting from her, it wasn’t this. But Morgaine was no idiot, and that casual remark had kicked together all the pieces of a puzzle she hadn’t realized existed until just now. How easily he became embarrassed around her, the odd looks he would sometimes give, how very highly he seemed to value her opinion…
Belial glanced away, his face turning into a crimson beacon. His hands clenched at the grass, and after a moment Morgaine realized he was quivering. Finally, after grappling with himself for what felt like an eternity, he met her eyes, and nodded jerkily.
“How long?” She asked. The simple question emerged as a half strangled squeak. He winced at her tone, and shrugged helplessly.
“I cannot say for certain. A while. Morgaine, listen.” A note of pleading entered his voice, and it was clear from his expression that he was distraught. “I beg you, think nothing of it. It is my burden and it should not sour what exists between us. Do not ever think I would force my selfish feelings upon you at the expense of our friendship.”
The human woman looked down at her knees, silent as the grave. An endless barrage of conflicting thoughts and impulses were warring inside of her, and she wasn’t sure which one to act on. This... this had so many implications, and despite what Belial was saying it complicated their friendship in a thousand different ways...
As the silence between them lengthened, Belial buried his head in his hands. “I’m sorry. Morgaine, I am so, so sorry. It was never my intention to put you in this position. I… I’ll take you back to Kolanth. I’ll leave you alone, from now on. I should have broken it off as soon as I realized, I should have known. I’ll stay away, I-”
At these words, something inside of Morgaine’s chest twisted painfully, and she grabbed Belial’s sleeve. “No! You selfish idiot, do you honestly think I want that? Y-you never seem to get it, what friendship really is. That it’s a two way street. You said you don’t want to lose me as a friend; do you think it wouldn’t kill me if I never saw you again? Belial you’re the first person besides my dad who accepted me! You laughed at my jokes instead of getting angry, you made me feel like I was worth something, you can’t just walk out on me like that!”
The knight gaped at her, his amber eyes full of pain and uncertainty. Morgaine slumped into him, burying her face in his soaking wet shirt even as she held his arm in a death grip. “You’re an idiot. You always have been. But you’re my idiot, and I don’t want to lose you.”
“Morgaine, I… I don’t know what to say,” he whispered, seeming too overcome with emotion to speak any louder. Hesitantly, as if afraid of spooking her, the elf put the arm Morgaine wasn’t clinging to around her shoulder. She let him, and after a moment his shoulders shook with silent sobs.
“I never meant for this to happen,” he said. “I never wanted to distress you so. But I can’t help it, the way I feel. Morgaine I… I love you.”
A shudder passed through the human woman, hearing him say it out loud. He felt it, and started to pull away, but she pushed into his chest more insistently and yanked him back down by the arm she was still holding.
“Will you stop the chivalrous low self-esteem nonsense for two minutes and just wait?” she demanded thickly. “I need time to think, you know that, you know I don’t rush into things! So please, don’t leave, just let me think for a minute!”
Belial said nothing, but resumed his previous position, arms around her shoulders. She could feel the strength of his emotions in the way he held her close- how had she not noticed this before now? How could she possibly have been so blind? Looking back now it seemed so obvious, but he’d always been so socially awkward that she simply hadn’t registered the shift in his treatment of her.
On the one hand, it terrified her. She was only seventeen, but she was a very worldly seventeen year old. She knew just how huge what he wanted from her was, how massive a shift it represented in her life. This wasn’t something to jump into blindly, not when it had the potential to lead to so much sacrifice and heartache.
But… this was Belial. This was the man who would feel guilty about killing a murderer despite there being no other choice, and lives on the line. Who’d locked himself away from other people for centuries because of that guilt. Despite his age there was a purity and innocence about him that would never allow the elf to hurt anyone, least of all Morgaine. She trusted him almost more than she trusted herself. He had accepted her for exactly who she was, without reservations, and he valued her so highly that he’d placed his incredibly fragile heart right in her hands.
Morgaine didn’t know what to do. She felt safe with Belial, and happy. Being held in his arms like this just seemed right somehow. But was that love, or just the normal sort of trust one would feel towards a very good friend? The woman honestly didn’t know; she’d never been in love before. She hadn’t really had a close friend before either- just casual friends and friendly acquaintances. Morgaine didn’t know if she could even tell the difference.
“Belial,” she said softly, easing her grip on his arm- surely it had gone numb by now, though he hadn’t commented on it. “I… I’m going to ask something of you. It’s really, really selfish of me, and I know it’ll probably hurt you, but-.”
“There is nothing you can ask of me that I would not give,” he interrupted simply.
She swallowed hard. “I need you to be patient with me. I know that I like you a lot, and it’d kill me if you left forever, but I just don’t know if that’s love. This is too big for me to try to understand on a spur of the moment.”
To her surprise, the knight laughed. When she looked up at him in surprise, that only seemed to set him off more, and she sat up in annoyance. “What is so funny about that? I’m being serious!”
He reached out and hugged her again. “Forgive me, I just… never thought I’d live to see the day a human asked an elf for patience. It is so very at odds with everything I’ve observed about the differences between our peoples and how they view the world.”
Morgaine huffed softly as he let her go. “You know I’m not like most humans, you said so yourself. And you’re pretty weird for an elf.”
“Oh, certainly,” Belial agreed, “but the irony is there all the same. My friend, my love, I will give you as much time as you require. And I really am sorry that you had to find out about this in such a way. It was never my intention to distress you.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said softly, turning around so that she could lean her back against him. He twitched in surprise at the gesture, but let her. “Let’s just… stay like this a while? Right now I don’t really think I’m fit for going back out in public.”
“Sure,” he said. Hesitantly, he lifted one arm and ran his fingers through her still dripping hair. The gesture made Morgaine shudder, but the sensation wasn’t an unpleasant one, so she let him keep doing it. Said and UnsaidWhen Morgaine discovered that her best friend was in love with her, the locksmith had worried nothing between them would ever be the same again. Belial wasn’t keeping it a secret anymore, so even though she hadn’t yet decided how to feel about the matter surely he would more openly treat her as a woman instead of an effectively gender-neutral friend.
That’s how it had always seemed to go between romantic couples in her experience. Corvus was a very conservative region. While women were allowed to run businesses and had the same rights as anywhere else in Kyth, there was a certain societal expectation that when a woman took a husband that she’d settle down and put most of her energy into taking care of him and the home rather than pursuing her own goals in life.
But to her surprise, aside some initial awkwardness in their first reunion afterwards, things between her and Belial settled back to normal fairly quickly. He still laughed at her jokes, blushed when she teased him, and carried her home when she got drunk. There were no long looks of smothered longing, no flirtatious overtures, and no sign that her continued locksmithing bothered him. He just showed the usual tender affection mixed with acute embarrassment he'd inadvertently displayed before.
A little over two weeks later, she mentioned her worry to him. To her astonishment, he actually got offended for the first time in her memory.
"I fell in love with you, Morgaine, not some romanticized ideal image of womanhood transplanted into your body. I love you for who you are, for the fact that you treat me the same as you'd treat anyone else- with compassion and needling in equal measure. Of course I am not trying to make our relations different, I enjoy what is between us already."
“I… I just,” she tightened her jaw. “That’s just how it is, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Belial admitted, refusing to meet her eyes. “Maybe for humans. But I would never ask you to do anything you were not comfortable with, nor would I demand that you lower yourself to the level of an object. I want a friend and an equal, not a subservient doll.”
His anger had changed to hurt then, as he added, "Besides, you asked me to wait and let you come to a decision on this matter yourself. What sort of friend would I be if I tried to pressure you into a decision after promising I would have patience?"
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, deflating. “I just… my head feels like it’s going to burst, I don’t know how to deal with this.”
The elf sighed. “Then for now, do nothing. Let it be. We are still friends, are we not? There is no reason we can’t carry on as before. If it distresses you that much, you are clearly not interested in taking this further, so please, I beg you, don’t destroy what we already have by dwelling on baseless anxieties.”
The human woman had surprised herself by wanting to hug him then- her heart twisted painfully at the obvious unhappiness in his demeanor. But she didn’t. He probably wouldn’t have accepted such a gesture from her in that moment anyway.
That had been the closest they'd come to an argument in a long while, and the first time Belial had legitimately been upset with her. In spite of the fact that the elf readily forgave her and dismissed the conversation, it was easy to see he was still hurt.
She took his advice and eventually they forgot about the confrontation. Life went on as normal, and gradually she learned more words in Elvish while he discovered just how many ways he could be made to feel both amused and awkward.
Then Morgaine began noticing small impulses. When she and Belial sat side by side under the well in the square, she found herself wanting to inch just a bit closer. When he was frustrated about something or hurting from some injury he’d acquired, she longed to give his hand a comforting squeeze. When she was tired, his shoulder looked extremely inviting to lean against. She even caught herself wondering why he’d made no efforts to touch her as he had in Nid’aigle, when his fingers combed her hair.
As the scorching days of summer cooled into early Autumn, she gave up resisting those urges and began to test the “safe” boundaries they’d put up on their relationship after the argument. To her relief, he accepted little gestures like handholding and shirt-fussing without comment. The first time Morgaine slumped over so that her arm brushed his, however, she’d felt him give a violent shudder and jerked back.
“Sorry, sorry!” she yelped. “I-I shouldn’t have don’t that, I-”
To her relief, he laughed, albeit a little breathlessly. “No, it’s fine. You just surprised me is all. Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, waving a hand dismissively. “I just, I dunno, wanted to sit closer. I probably should have asked first, but usually you just kinda turn red when I do things to you…”
“Usually it is all talk, unless you are drunk,” he pointed out mildly. “And you may not notice since the inebriation is a touch distracting, but I usually do jump when you touch me then.”
Morgaine winced. “Sorry, I won’t do that again.”
To her surprise, however, he smiled sheepishly and coughed. “I, ah… never said it was unpleasant. If you wanted to try again, I wouldn’t stop you.”
She did try again, and from then on it wasn’t uncommon to see the two of them in various places around town, leaning into each other while they discussed recent doings or exchanged verbal barbs.
As when Morgaine had leaned into his chest in Nid’aigle and he held her possessively in his arms, this just felt right. All the talking and thinking in the world had only confused and frustrated her, but even as tiny a gesture as Belial squeezing back when she took his hand in hers made her day a thousand times brighter. If asked she wouldn’t have been able to verbalize it, but something about the simple physical contact made a world of difference. The elf, bless him, was quick to pick up on this, and it wasn’t long before he started making little overtures of his own.
Their conversations continued as they always had, nothing obvious changing except for the physical intimacy. But when the people in Kolanth saw Morgaine leaning backwards into Belail’s chest, or noticed that they greeted each other with a hug as often as a sarcastic quip, many chuckles were had and no few bets were placed.
In spite of all this, Belial was true to his word. He never once brought up the conversation they’d had in Nid’aigle, despite the fact that he probably would have been well within his rights to say that Morgaine was leading him on.
On day close to Midwinter, however, he rode into town with an unusually grim look on his face. He was dressed in full plate armor, which could only mean one thing.
“You’ve got an assignment?” she asked. “A long one, from the look of it, you’ve got the heavy set on.”
He sighed. “There are bandits raiding up and down the border with Kine- normally we wouldn’t be called for this, since it’s so far away and Lord Miller should be able to supplement the Jade troops just fine. But with Bern still mopping up after the war with Lange, apparently the Booveens are too paranoid of leftover Mercenaries creeping across the border to, and I quote, ‘do the militia’s job for them.’”
Morgaine winced, “While the point is a valid one, that’s… really now? Is he a blind idiot?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But I just wanted to let you know before we move out- I’ll probably be gone at least a month this time. Maybe longer. We have to bring the bandits to bay before we can capture them, and we have to get to the opposite border before we can even make plans for how to bring them to bay.”
The woman’s gut twisted. He vanished for days or weeks at a time at regular intervals- he was a knight after all, and he had a job to do. But it had been a decent while since his squad was last assigned to a long-haul mission.
“It’ll be a miserable time, I imagine,” she remarked with forced cheer. “Slogging through the south of Corvus in the winter rains, and trying to pin down a bunch of brigands running around in the wilds.”
He laughed, though it was a strained sound. “I’m liable to forget what being dry feels like,” he turned his horse away. “I’d best be getting back, before I’m missed. Take care of yourself, dear friend.”
She felt her teeth clench. “B-Belial…”
He looked around in surprise, and she gulped. Why was this so hard? She’d seen him off on missions a thousand times before now, why was this time so ‘Pit cursed hard?
“Can… can I have a hug?” she asked. “Before you go?”
He blinked, looking for a moment as if he hadn’t understood. Then he laughed. “Sure; but I really can’t linger, I shouldn’t have taken the time to come at all.”
But he had. And she was grateful for that, because if he’d just vanished for a month it would have hurt. It was already going to. Somehow, despite the fact that she’d grown up an only child and was perfectly capable of entertaining herself, the idea of a month without his company left her feeling almost lost.
As he pulled her into his arms, she winced a bit- the armor was hard and cold, nothing like hugging him usually was. It was supposed to be that way of course- it was to protect the softness underneath from enemy swords and arrows.
He could die, she realized. She’d always known this on an intellectual level, but in that moment with her face pressed against his armor, the realization hit her like a brick wall. He might very well die on this mission, and she’d never see him again.
Despite the discomfort, she squeezed all the tighter around his armored chest, trying to fight back the stinging in her eyes.
“Belial,” she croaked, her shoulders shaking. “Belial you’d b-better come back.”
“Morgaine, of course I’ll come back,” he said, putting a hand under her chin to tilt her face upwards. “What’s wrong? You’ve done this a thousand times before, why are you crying?”
“I… I…” she wanted to say “I don’t know”, but she couldn’t. It would have been a lie, just like the lie she’d been telling herself for months. She kept hiding behind not knowing, even though really she should have admitted to herself that she had long since found her answer.
“B-because… because I love you.”
Belial’s mouth fell open, and he looked absolutely thunderstruck. “Morgaine, d-do you really mean that?”
She was too overcome with emotion to get another coherent word out, but she nodded, clutching her arms around him so tightly that she could feel the grooves and nails of his armor digging into her skin.
“I… I’m sorry, my friend, my love,” he said, his amber eyes alight with an odd mixture of absolute bliss and absolute anguish. “There is no time now, I must go. But when I return, I swear we will speak of this again. Will you wait for me?”
Reluctantly, she let go of him. When she looked up into his eyes, however, there was no more uncertainty. “Forever.”
I Hear You NowThe trip to the Corvus/Kine border had been every bit as miserable as Belial had guessed it would be, and the bandit hunt was a long, miserable slog that he could feel no triumph for once they finally ended it. Catching the bandits just meant I had to stand a stoic guard while ignoring the pain of an elbow dislocated during the fight, and watch as they were summarily executed.
He’d never understood why people seemed to think being a knight was glorious. Belial had joined the service because when he was young he’d discovered a natural talent for hitting things he aimed at, and because knights were badly needed to fend off the cursed Courdonians. And, enamoured with human culture as he’d always been, at the time he’d thought the job would be wonderful.
More the fool he. Even human soldiers would have told him there was no joy to be found in killing; for an elf, who had no natural propensity towards fighting, it was utterly miserable. He knew what he was doing was right, and needed. He saw that in the gratitude of the innocents whose lives and livelihoods he protected. And he did feel a certain amount of pride in that. All the same, it was hard.
Once it was done, however, and he no longer needed to keep his mind focused on the dangerous task at hand…
Well, what was waiting for him back home was hard too. Not because he wasn’t happy about it, quite the opposite.
“I love you.”
The entire trip west those words had echoed in his mind. Though Belial had admitted to Morgaine how he felt about her months ago, after the argument they’d had about it he’d never dared to hope she might one day return his feelings. But when she’d spoken those three simple words to him before he left, the weight of emotion behind them could not possibly have been feigned. It had kindled a flame in Belial’s chest, a light that kept him going through the long, six weeks of misery until Nid’aigle was at last in sight again.
And a good thing too, because by the time they arrived back in the city his energy reserves were flagging. The same was true of all the knights. The hunt had been exhausting, and conditions in their camps hadn’t exactly been favorable for getting a restful sleep. Top that off with the battle, injuries, and the trip back home, and all of them were about ready to pass out in their saddles. Some actually had.
In spite of his fatigue, the temptation for Belial to break away from his fellow elves and ride directly for Kolanth instead of reporting to Nid’aigle had been strong. It had taken all of Belial’s self-discipline to throttle down the impulse, to go back to base like a good soldier and check in. His dislocated arm was looked at by the healers, who fixed the lingering ligament damage but advised him to go easy on it for a week or so just to be safe.
By the time all of the niceties were seen to, it was fairly late in the afternoon. Warblade gave him a much aggrieved look when he arrived in the stable again. The poor horse had gotten almost no rest during the bandit hunt, and now he’d have to go an hour out to Kolanth to humor his master’s impatience.
“I’m sorry, old friend,” he told the creature gently. “You know I’m exhausted too. I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t important, I swear. Once we get to the town you can rest in the inn stables as long as you like.”
Warblade gave him one last long-suffered look, then turned so that he could be saddled.
By the time Belial arrived in Kolanth, bleary eyed but determined to power through it, it was getting close to dusk. The villagers greeted him warmly as he passed them, and the owner of the tavern even flagged him down for a brief conversation.
“Sir Braham!” he’d called, “Yer a right sight fer sore eyes! Maybe Miss Folet will start coming in again now they you’re back.”
“Has she not been coming?” Belial asked with surprise.
“Naught but the first week after ye left,” the man replied. “She didn’t drink much even then. Said it wasn’t as fun without ye to talk to. By all accounts she’s been pouring herself into the locksmithing like a possessed thing.”
“Well then I imagine it is the lock shop where I will find her,” he remarked. “Thank you, good sir. I hope that I can restore your best customer to you.”
The man chuckled. “You do that.”
Leaving Warblade at the inn, Belial set off towards the lock shop where Morgaine was undergoing her apprenticeship. When he arrived, he was greeted by the startled face of the shop’s proprietor, Brennan Smithson.
“Why, if it ain’t the ‘Pit spawn what stole my apprentice from me,” Master Smithson said, his face set in a scowl but his eyes glittering with good humor that belied the expression. “Thought we finally got rid of you and your interfering.”
“Only temporarily,” Belial replied with tired amusement. “And is that fair? Morgaine always completes her work on time, does she not? Sometimes she brings her locksmithing things with her when we go out together.”
“Bah, bring logic into it,” Smithson grumbled. “If you’re looking for Miss Folet, you won’t find her here. She went out for a walk, dunno where to.”
“I see,” he replied, trying to suppress a sigh of frustration. “I’ll wait on one of the benches on this street than, thank you for your time.”
“Braham,” the locksmith said unexpectedly, catching Belial by the arm as he turned to walk away. “You’ve been hanging around Kolanth since my granda was just a sprout; we here know you better’n you probably think we do. And it’d take a blind idiot not to see what’s between you and Miss Folet. For what it’s worth, we’re happy for you.”
The elf stared, his face turning crimson with pleasure and embarrassment. He had known the people of Kolanth regarded him as something of a community landmark, but it hadn’t occurred to him that they might take an interest in him as a person. Then again, he’d become more and more involved directly in the community at Morgaine’s insistence, participating in things instead of standing off to one side and observing. Now that Smithson had said something, Belial realized he did feel like he really belonged here.
“Thank you, Master Smithson.”
The man grunted. “Good luck, lover boy. That one’s a handful.”
Belial laughed, knowing it was the truth.
The elf had fully intended to wait for Morgaine to return. His heart was fluttering in his chest like a bird, half convinced that maybe it had all be a vivid daydream and she had never actually said those three wonderful, terrifying words. He wanted to see her coming, so that he could see the look on her face when she saw that he was back and confirm once and for all that he hadn’t been deluding himself for the past several weeks.
But it really had been a long ride, after a long chase and a hard fight on very scant sleep. The late winter air was pleasantly balmy, and there was no longer a nagging pain in his arm to keep him conscious. Despite his nerves and the best of intentions, the elven man’s muscles relaxed and his eyelids drooped. He jerked himself awake several times, but eventually boredom and exhaustion won out. Belial slumped over on his bench, sound asleep.
* * * * *
The cheerful chiming of the doorbell heralded Morgain’s exit from the bakery. She had a large bun in one hand, and was stuffing her money pouch back into her toolbelt with the other.
It had been a very long, stressful few weeks since Belial left. Only on one other instance since they’d met had they been separated for more than two weeks in a single shot, and that had been right after Morgaine left Cypress Springs for Kolanth originally, before Belial realized where she’d gone. His squad had just finished a painfully long assignment dealing with the wyverns in Morgaine’s home village, and they’d been taken off the roster for long-haul missions for a good while.
But it was inevitable that they’d come up again, and of course it would happen at the worst possible time- just when Morgaine was confronting the realization that she cared for Belial far more deeply then just as a friend.
On a certain level it had been almost frustrating; no matter what she tried to do to distract herself, when she let her mind wander it inevitably wandered to Belial. Her master, when he wasn’t pretending to complain about how the elf had stolen his best pupil, assured her this was normal and her emotions would even out with time. But it didn’t make the discomfort any easier in the present.
Especially not when she would wake up every so often, soaked with sweat and unable to remember what she’d been dreaming except that it had involved Belial and far, far too much blood.
At least she had plenty of time to work on her Elvish. Without Belial it was harder to confirm if her pronunciation was right, but he’d given her several books the elves used to learn Kythian and they worked almost as well backwards as forwards.
Morgaine was stuffing the last few bites of the bun into her mouth when she caught sight of a very familiar mop of short-cropped blonde hair framed by long, slanted ears. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she almost gagged on the bread before she managed to painfully swallow it. He was back! He was finally back!
“Belial!” she called, but to her surprise the elf didn’t seem to hear her. As she drew closer she realized that he was slumped over on one of the street benches, his eyes firmly closed. Was… was he sleeping?
He was. Morgaine shook her head as she got close enough to get a good look at him. He looked like he’d come straight to Kolanth from the battlefield without so much as a five minute break to catch his breath. There were dark rings under his eyes, he was thinner from a long time on trail rations, and from the way he was unconsciously holding his arm it was likely he’d been hurt there and only just had it healed.
“My poor idiot,” she said softly, reaching out to brush at the strands of hair that had fallen in his face. “I told you I would wait- one more night wouldn’t have killed anything.”
The elf didn’t give even the tiniest of reactions to Morgaine’s touch- he was well and truly out. She just shook her head, and sat down on the bench next to him. It was strange to think he was so much older than her, but that despite all of his centuries he still had the emotional maturity and social awkwardness of a shy, gawky teenager. She’d known that since not long after they really became friends, after all it was made his reactions to the woman’s teasing so entertaining. But more recently it had begun to evoke a sort of protective instinct in her. She loved that vulnerable, sensitive side of him, and she wouldn’t let anyone take advantage of it… except for herself, of course.
Belial’s arm twitched, and he moaned slightly. It looked like he might have been waking up, or at least trying to. Suddenly getting an idea, Morgaine leaned towards him so that her nose was almost touching him, and waited. After several moments more of gradually increasing signs of wakefulness, his eyes cracked open blearily. Then, surprised to find someone else’s face so close to his, his eyes snapped open the rest of the way and he flung himself backwards with a startled yelp. Morgaine managed to catch his arm before he fell completely off the bench, and laughed at the indignant expression on his face.
“Was that really necessary?” he asked, rubbing his eyes to clear the sleep from them.
“No, but it was fun,” she answered cheekily. Then she threw her arms around his chest, grinning like an idiot. “I’m glad you’re back, Belial. It was boring around here without you.”
She felt him wrap his arms around her shoulders, and when he spoke his voice was thick. “I… Morgaine, I want to hear it again. Please? Will you please say it for me, so I can be certain I was not dreaming?”
The woman laughed, pressing the top of her head upwards into his chin like a cat. “I love you. I love you. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it, but it’s there, and you weren’t dreaming. Or if this is a dream, I hope I never have to wake up from it.”
“Thank you,” he said softly, but the weight of emotion in his voice said so much more than that. The two of them pulled away from each other, and Morgaine touched his arm.
“What happened? You were clutching your arm in your sleep, is it hurt?”
“Was I?” he said, sounding surprised. “It was, but don’t concern yourself, it has already been seen to. And it wasn’t anything serious, just a dislocation.”
She quirked an eyebrow, her face taking on a light of amusement. “‘Just’ a dislocation? Aren’t those excruciatingly painful and debilitating?”
“When you have spent three hundred years getting limbs broken, near fatal lacerations, concussions, and torn muscles, a simple dislocation is really not such a big deal,” he said with a wry grin. “It takes mere moments to reduce it back into place most of the time, and then a few seconds of spellwork to repair any torn ligaments. Of course there are more severe types of dislocation, where the bone itself is damaged or the internal structure of your arm is, but fortunately that was not the case here.”
In spite of his reassurances, the casual description of all of these wounds he’d supposedly gotten made Morgaine shiver. To him it was no big deal; that was just his life. But Morgaine couldn’t help thinking what would happen if one of those wounds was in a slightly different place, or the healers got to it just barely too late…
She leaned into him so that their shoulders were touching, and felt him relax into her as she did. Hesitantly, he pulled his arm out from under her so that she was leaning against his chest instead, and put his arm instead around her shoulder. It was… nice.
“So what now?” she asked softly. “I… I don’t really know how this works. I love you, I know that now, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.”
“I don’t really either,” Belial admitted, leaning his head against the top of hers and closing his eyes. “For now, I suppose we just figure it out as we go along. We’ve already been pushing at each other to see what works and what doesn’t, so just keep doing that.”
Morgaine laughed. “What, make our own rules you mean? Hm. I like the sound of that.”
“I had rather thought you would, given the strength of your opinions on how humans handle this sort of thing,” he remarked drowsily. “I do not believe you would especially care for how elven courtship usually plays out either. It can take a few decades to get anywhere, give or take.”
Morgaine realized that his muscles were going limp again, and that he hadn’t opened his eyes once in the last several minutes. She grinned wryly. “You’re going to fall asleep again aren’t you?”
“I think so,” he admitted sheepishly. “I can’t seem to keep my eyes open for some reason.”
“Idiot,” she said affectionately. “Well I’m sure Master can see us just fine out the window, so he knows where to find me if he needs something.”
“You’ll stay out here?” he asked, actually cracking an eyelid. “You, the queen of ‘I’m bored’?”
“Aw, I’m wounded,” she said teasingly. “What good would I be if I abandoned you out here in the middle of the street where pickpockets and vandals could take advantage of you? I doubt very much you’d make it all the way to the inn to pass out there.”
“I wouldn’t,” he agreed, letting the eye slide back shut with a grin.
“We do seriously need to break you of this habit though,” she teased. “You can take a little time to properly recover after a mission before you rush over here. I promise can handle a little impatience, I’m a big girl.”
He gave an odd sort of sigh, and Morgaine knew he was more then half asleep by that point. Almost inaudibly he murmured, “Je t'aime.”
Morgaine smiled, recognizing the Elvish phrase he’d taught her months ago, before she ever imagined it would apply to the two of them. Squeezing his hand, she replied, “I love you too.” The Flowers of Beltane(This story makes reference to an instrument called a dulcimer. You can hear an example of dulcimer music here)It was 30th of April in the little Corvid village of Kolanth; the day of the annual Beltane festival. All over town people were preparing for the celebrations. A bonfire would be kindled at the edge of the village, and the people and livestock would gather around it for dancing and merriment. Traditionally, this was meant to protect the people and animals of the village by burning away harmful influences, as well as symbolically represent the energy and warmth of the summer sun. Beltane was, at it’s core, a transitional holiday marking the end of spring and the beginning of summer. The following morning there would be more dancing, this time around a maypole, which would ensure the fertility of the land in the coming seasons. Of course the fires had to be kept well away from people’s houses so as not to accidentally set the wooden dwellings ablaze. Instead, flowers with fiery yellow petals were woven into garlands and wreaths, and hung from doorways and windows. The people would also weave yellow flowers into crowns to wear on their heads. The people of Kolanth, with their close proximity to the elves of Nid’aigle, had picked up an additional Beltane practice that wasn’t generally seen elsewhere. Once the bonfire was lit, no one was permitted to speak. There would still be music, and plenty of it, but not one human (or elvish) voice was to be heard. Instead, people communicated by using the various flowers that bloomed in spring. Each individual flower had a different meaning, usually with a romantic connotation to go along with the fertility aspect of the festival. It was frowned upon by some of the more religiously conservative, but their voices were a minority and summarily ignored. After all, what objection could the Lord Woo possibly have to a bit of honest fun and a celebration of life? For as long as anyone could remember Beltane had been celebrated with no evidence of condemnation from the holy entity. “I think it will be fine,” Belial remarked, when Morgaine brought up the naysayers. “The humans who lived in Kolanth three hundred years ago when I first started coming to the village had their own iteration of it. It differed in some ways, but the general gist has remained largely the same. And no, there has never been any misfortune that came upon anyone resulting from it, except hangovers from drinking far more than is prudent.” He stood then, hammering a yellow-flowered garland to the doorpost of the lock shop. Though usually Morgaine and her master hung the ceremonial wreaths and garlands themselves, Belial had offered to help in their preparations this year. His superior height made him much better suited to the task. “I rather thought as much,” Morgaine replied with a grin. “But I figured you would know for sure.” She turned her attention back to the small book in her lap- it was one Belial had given her, written in Elvish, about the elven flower language. This was only the woman’s second Beltane in Kolanth; her home village of Cypress Springs didn’t have the tradition of silence, so she hadn’t known how to make herself understood the year before. She was determined to get it right this time around. “Are you still here, Morgaine?” Master Smithson asked, coming out of the lock shop and glowering at his apprentice. “If you don’t get going all the other ladies in town will finish their crowns before you even get to the square.” She looked up in surprise, noticing for the first time that it was almost sunset. A look of panic crossed her face as she leapt up. “Ah, for Woo’s sake…” The young woman hesitated, seeming caught by some sort of indecision. Then, as Belial kneeled down to pick up another bundle of flowers, she leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “See you at the bonfire,” she said, and bolted down the street. Belial started after her, mouth hanging open in surprise. He lifted a hand, unconsciously touching the spot on his face where she’d kissed him. “You’ve the look of a man who’s been hit in the back with a shovel, Braham,” Master Smithson remarked, amused. “C’mon, there’s work to be done. It’s not like she hasn’t done that before.” “But she hasn’t,” the elf objected, his mouth unconsciously voicing the protest while his brain was still trying to catch up to the present. A minute later he caught sight of the dumbfounded look on Smithson’s face and realized with horror what he’d just said. “You mean to tell me you and Morgaine have been an item for nigh on three months, and she’s only just now kissed you on the cheek? Great Woo, I knew you were a shy one Sir Braham, but I always figured Morgaine for taking the bull by the horns.” The elf flushed, cursing softly to himself in Elvish. He couldn’t see any easy way out of this conversation, but he wasn’t especially looking forward to having it. “We’ve just been taking things slowly-” “Like ‘Pit you have,” Smithson interrupted. “You two were joined at the hip almost constantly even before you acknowledged to each other you had a thing going. After you got back from Kine it’s been a wonder your boss over in the Elflands hasn’t come down on all our heads with as much time as you spend here instead of there. I seriously doubt either of you is under any delusions that you don’t love each other and you need to ‘take things slow.’ What’s your reason really?” “I…,” the elf sighed, covering his face with a hand. “I don’t… really know how to go about it.” “You don’t- are you telling me that you are hundreds of years old, and you have never kissed a woman before?” Belial didn’t answer, instead focusing on putting another nail in the garland over the door. His silence seemed to be answer enough for the locksmith, though. “Well, Sir Braham, that ends tonight. Beltane is the festival of fertility after all, so what better a time?” The knight glanced Smithson with a frown. “Master Smithson, with all due respect, it’s not really your-” “No, it’s not my business,” the locksmith interrupted, correctly guessing what Belial was about to say. “But I don’t care. You love the girl, right? And she loves you, I sure as fire know that. So stop hiding behind your stuffy elf-knight manners and just do it. Can’t possibly be harder than fighting bandits, can it?” Belial opened his mouth to object further, but the human turned and walked back into the shop without waiting to hear what the elf was going to say. He sighed, returning to the hanging of the garland. The truth was, he did want to kiss Morgaine. The elf just didn’t want to push her. While she certainly seemed to like physical intimacy, there was a part of Belial that couldn’t help remembering the fight they’d had just after she found out about his feelings for her. He hadn’t realized it until Morgaine pointed it out, but there was a rather noticeable trend towards objectification of women in human romantic relationships. Waiting for her to warm up at her own pace had reassured Morgaine that Belial had no intentions of doing any such thing, but he worried that if he tried to move the relationship forward too quickly she’d become intimidated again. Then again, if he needed to keep holding himself back out of fear of losing her, it wasn’t exactly a healthy relationship to begin with. He didn’t want to pressure her, but that didn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t try making moves of his own once in a while. And well… she had kissed him. On the cheek, but maybe that had been a hint. Maybe she was just as nervous about pushing too hard as he was. * * * * * The last rays of the sunlight vanished over the horizon, and a hush fell over the villagers of Kolanth. Gradually, a glow appeared out of the huge pile of wood in the center of the learing- the beginning of the bonfire. Belial looked around, but couldn’t catch sight of Morgaine anywhere in his immediate vicinity. He turned to her master, whom he had arrived at the bonfire with. Smithson smirked, puckering his lips and waving a white bell shaped flower in Belial’s direction- the shellflower, which meant “good luck.” The elf scowled, and Smithson sniggered before turning to go and find his wife in the crowd. Out of centuries of long habit, Belial withdrew from the rest of the group to hang back and watch as the bard struck up the first in a series of lively dance numbers on his dulcimer. Belial didn’t spend every Beltane in Kolanth, of course, sometimes he stayed in Nid’aigle for it. But he’d attended enough of the human village’s celebrations to have an established pattern. Apparently someone who knew his pattern had informed Morgaine of it, because it wasn’t very long before she tracked him down. Her usual blue head scarf was gone, and instead her long black hair was crowned by a wreath of bright yellow marigolds. She plucked the flower crown off her head, in the manner of a gentleman doffing a hat, and took Belial’s hand to bow over it. He had to fight hard not to laugh at the ridiculous gesture, which would have broken the rule of silence. But Morgaine caught the shaking of his shoulders and the half strangled exhaling, and grinned in reply. Putting the flowers back on her head, she then shook her sleeve and revealed a small purple bloom that she’d been concealing there. It was a viscaria, which in the language of flowers meant “will you dance with me?” She presented it to Belial, and with a resigned grin he took it- the gesture that meant “yes.” Normally he would have prefaced his assent with a thousand shy disclaimers; he didn’t really know how to dance, for one thing. But the silence that would hold until dawn precluded any such thing, and for once he just allowed himself to do something silly without giving much thought to it. It became evident rather quickly that he was far from the only person in the crowd who didn’t know any actual dance moves- in fact, Morgaine herself seemed to be more just moving her body randomly to the music then doing any real choreography. But insofar as he could tell, that didn’t diminish her enjoyment any. After a few songs, he realized from the way his face seemed almost split in two by his smiling that he was having fun too. Before too long, he completely gave himself over to the music. Though as per his usual habit he was not drinking any of the freely available alcohol, the general atmosphere of the festival as every bit as heady and intoxicating as wine would have been. The music had an ethereal quality to it, and that combined with the light cast by the fire almost seemed to transport the entire scene into a place apart from the normal, material world. Dancing giddily opposite him, Morgaine seemed to feel the same way. Finally, her stamina seemed to flag, and she waved a hand to indicate that she wanted to pull away from the fireside. Though the knight wasn’t too tired, he smiled and nodded. His heart was beating frighteningly fast from the exertion, and the blood rushing to his head made him feel giddier than he had in a very long time. She led the way over to the barrels at the edge of the clearing, where flowers had been stored. After inspecting a few of them, she pulled out a white camelia and presented it to Belial with a wink. He smiled sheepishly. The white camelia meant “you’re adorable.” No doubt she was making fun of him for getting so caught up in the dancing earlier despite his usual attempts to maintain an air of quiet dignity- not that this facade had really lasted very long after she came into his life. A lot had changed since he met her, now that he thought about it. Her gentle teasing made him smile and blush in equal measure, both things he hadn’t been connected enough to other people or his own emotions to do in decades. Her outgoing nature had earned him friends in the village where he had once been just a sort of living statue. And her love filled him as much with terror as it did with joy- for the first time in a long time, he felt like he had something to lose. He was startled out of his thoughts when Morgaine touched his sleeve. There was a look of concern on her face, and he realized that he was quivering. Clenching his jaw, he reached around for his belt pouch and pulled something out of it. Then, letting the object in question rest on his palm, he held it out to her in a hand that shook. It was a tiny, thin red flower. A mistletoe blossom. The most well known of all of the flower symbols, and one that could not possibly be misunderstood. Morgaine stared at it, her face a study of blank astonishment. Then, very slowly, she reached out and took the flower out of Belial’s hand. He was surprised to find that in that moment, what he noticed most was how very short Morgaine was. He didn’t think she’d be able to reach all the way up to his face without some sort of boost. She seemed to realize this as well, because despite the fact that she was quivering with nerves she took one look at the gap between their heads and gave Belial a sardonic smirk. He gave an equally mocking return smile, and gently put his arms around her waist. Pulling her off her feet entirely, to her obvious amusement, he was able to bring the woman up on-level with him. For a moment their eyes locked, and neither of them seemed sure what to do next. Then, at almost the same moment, they came to a decision about it. Their lips met, and for a fleeting eternity the rest of the world fell away. Two sets of very fast heartbeats melted into one, and their souls were joined in a bliss that went beyond anything that could have been described in words. When they pulled apart again, Morgaine gently leaned her head into Belial’s shoulder. He felt a soft puff of air against his neck as she sighed with contentment, and he rested his cheek affectionately against hers. Even if it were not for the Beltane silence, neither of them would have spoken in that moment. No words were needed. To Be Strong: Part OneMorgaine gave the door an experimental jiggle; the hinges rattled, but it showed no signs of opening. She yanked, with the same result. Smiling, she then took a small key out of her workbelt and inserted it into the keyhole. It turned, and with a click the mechanism inside triggered. This time when she pushed on the door, it opened readily.
“You’re all set, Master Albury,” she said cheerfully, handing the key over to him. “This should keep those kids out of your barn from now on.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Miss Folet,” the man said gratefully. “Smithson’s done well by you, no doubt about that.”
The eighteen year old woman winked cheerfully. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate your compliments, but he’ll appreciate payment more.”
“Of course,” the farmer said. He took a small shoulderbag he’d brought out to the barn with him and offered it to Morgaine. She inspected the contents; five runestones for the lock, and two scrolls for the install, just as they’d agreed.
“Looks good,” she said, putting the bag over her own shoulder. “I’ll bring the bag back to you tomorrow morning at the market square.”
“Thankee, Miss Folet,” the farmer said, waving as she turned to walk away.
Morgaine lifted her arms in a contented stretch, popping her neck as she did so. She loved this job. Building locks was a delicate business, like constructing an intricate puzzle. And you had to make sure each like was minutely different on the inside, or the mechanism would open for someone else’s key. The work was an endless challenge that tested her ingenuity on a daily basis- and that was exactly why she’d chosen it over any other career path.
It was late July in the tiny town of Corvus, and the summer sun was scorching. As Morgaine walked down the street she occasionally heard someone complain about the temperature, but it didn’t seem so bad to her. Especially not when compared to her swampy home village of Cypress Springs. There it was not only hotter, being further south, it was horrifically humid. At least the heat here was relatively dry.
The young woman arrived at the the shop where she had been sharing houseroom with her locksmithing master and his wife for the past two and a half years. She pushed open the door, calling out, “I’m back!”
Brennan Smithson looked up from his crafting table in the back of the room. Other than him the room appeared to be empty, so his wife must have been elsewhere. When he caught sight of her, he grinned. “What, done already? That was pretty fast- you didn’t rush the job did you?”
“I never rush the job,” Morgaine replied with dignity. “Here’s the man’s payment. It should all be there, I checked.”
She set the bag down on Smithson’s crafting table, and he glanced up at her with a raised eyebrow. “And you’re giving it to me why exactly?”
The woman blinked. “Because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Or do you not want to be paid for your services?”
“I’ll take payment for my services, but this was your project. You accepted the commission, you ordered the parts, you did the crafting, and you completed the install.”
“I… but… I-I’m an apprentice, apprentices don’t get paid for their work! We’re paid in room and board!”
“You were an apprentice,” Smithson corrected her with a grin. “As of this morning, you stopped being one. You’ve been a fantastic student, Morgaine; I have nothing else to teach you that you won’t learn just as well from experience.”
The young woman stared at her master- former master now. “You… you’re serious?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Of course, you can stay on here as my assistant if you like, but you’ll have to start paying rent on that room of yours or get your own place.”
She laughed, “Oh, so you tell me I can keep my money, and the next second you start counting off all the money I’ll have to be giving you. A merchant right to your core, as always.”
“A man has to make a living,” he pointed out with a grin. “Besides, you-”
Morgaine would never find out what else Smithson had been about to say, because at that moment he was interrupted by the sound of a scream.
“What the ‘Pit?” he said, frowning. Both of the locksmiths walked towards the doorway. He pushed the curtains away from the window, just in time to see several armored horseman thunder down the street in front of them. They were armed to the teeth, and Morgaine realized with horror that several of them were carrying bloodied weapons.
“Bandits?” she hissed as Smithson yanked the drapes shut again.
“Worse,” he growled, his eyes going wide with fear, though it didn’t show in his voice. “That armor is way too good for low-life bandits. Those are foreign mercenaries. They’re slavers, Morgaine, come to cart us off to Courdon.”
The young woman’s blood ran cold at those words. She knew about Courdon, of course, everyone in Corvus did. And Belial had told her the Courdonians liked to raid Nid’aigle for elven slaves, but this was the first time she could remember there being any evidence of their presence being seen in Kolanth.
“They must have decided to go for a softer target then the elves this time,” she said, wincing as more screams sounded from outside. “What do we do?”
“We? Not a ruddy thing, you idiot, we’re not heroes!” he snapped. Before the man got the chance to say anything more, there was a loud crash, and the blade of an ax appeared in the door to the lockshop.
“They’re coming in!” Morgaine hissed.
“I can see that!” Smithson snapped. “The window, go out the back window, now!”
“And go where, they’re probably all over town by now!” Morgaine hissed, though she was already obeying. Fortunately the wood of the merchant’s door was good quality, and the Courdonian seemed to be having trouble yanking his ax back out of it for another swing.
“The elflands,” he said. “You’ve been to the elf city at least two or three times now with Braham haven’t you? Go there and get us help.”
“What? Master, I can’t, it’s an hour’s journey on an elven horse, I don’t even have a normal horse! It’ll take at least three hours to get there, and another for them to get back here, not even counting the time they’d need to get ready!”
“I know,” he said bluntly. “But it’s the only hope we have. Morgaine, for Woo’s sake, there’s no time to argue! Braham has been teaching you Elvish so you can talk to them, and you’re small enough that you can get out of town without being noticed. But you have to go now!”
As if to confirm his words, there was an explosive crash from the door, and it splintered inwards.
“I’ll distract them! Go!”
He shoved her out the open window, and she yelped as she fell and hit her shoulder on the ground below. She heard the sound of raised voices from in the shop, and she wanted to look at see what was going on, but Smithson was right. There was no time; the elves were the only fighting force anywhere remotely close enough to help them, and she was the only person in Kolanth who knew more than five words total of Elvish. She bit her lip, and scrambled under the windows towards the alleyway that would bring her back around the shop.
Chaos was everywhere. As Morgaine darted from cover to cover, she could see people screaming and running from the armored men. The expressions of savage glee made her want to punch them, and it was everything the locksmith could do not to intervene when she saw yet another friend or neighbor being dragged away. There were a great many injured, but the mercenaries seemed to be trying to avoid fatalities- they really were slavers then. The more villages they caught alive, the more they would be paid.
Finally Morgaine reached the edge of the houses, and the ten meters of open grass that was between Kolanth and the forest that hid the elven city. The locksmith knew that she didn’t dare take the road, but hopefully if she followed the direction of the sunlight she’d still find her way...
But it seemed that she had miscalculated. She didn’t know if it was the open window back at the lock shop that had tipped the Courdonians off, or if she’d inadvertently made some sort of noise that alerted the ones outside. Either way, one minute she was making a mad dash for the treeline at the edge of Kolanth, the next she heard an angry voice behind her, and the thunder of hoofbeats.
Her heart leapt into her throat, and she ran at full pelt towards the treeline. If she could get to it, the horse wouldn’t be able to follow her, just a few more feet…
Just as she made it to the edge of the forest, there was a flash of yellow light behind her. All of her muscles went rigid at once, and the forward momentum carried her forward over the edge of a shallow gully. If her throat had worked she would have cried out in pain; the leg that had been stretched out forward in her stride hit the bottom of the trench at an awkward angle, and it felt like her heel had been stabbed through with a sword blade.
She landed hard, lying in the trench frozen in a running position, unable to even move her eyes to look at what was going on. Had… had the mercenary used magic on her somehow?
In her peripheral vision she could see an armored figure standing over her. She wanted to look up, to show him she wasn’t going to be cowed by him, but her entire body was still completely immobilized.
The mercenary grabbed her by the hair, dragging her stiff body upright. Then, for no reason Morgaine could discern, he drew out a small dagger and slashed a line across her cheek. It bit like cold fire, and almost immediately she could feel blood dripping down her face. The Courdonian repeated the procedure, tearing her left sleeve almost completely off and making a shallow but bloody cut across her upper arm. He took the knife and made several ragged slashes on her skirts, and as if for good measure yanked off her head scarf and pulled her hair out of it’s bun.
Then, against all logic, he dropped her. She hit the ground painfully, the ankle she’d injured in her original fall exploding with agony that would have made her cry out if she had been able to move. She heard the sound of footsteps moving away, followed by the jangle of metal as he climbed back up into his horse’s saddle. Was… was he leaving? After going to the trouble of using magic to paralyze her and using her as a scratching post for his knife, was he seriously just going to walk away?
Morgaine didn’t understand it, but there wasn’t time to wonder at it. As her limbs gradually loosened, all of her focus was on regaining enough mobility to stand back up. She had to stand up, she had to get through the woods to the road, she had to get help. Even if the Courdonian had inexplicably left her in the woods, she could still hear screaming from the village, and the cruel laughter of the mercenaries.
Then, suddenly her muscles sagged, and she found that she could move again. Pushing herself up, she wiped at the blood on her cheek and ripped her dangling sleeve off the rest of the way. When she tried to stand, she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. Her ankle hurt, oh Woo it hurt. She tried to put weight on it again, and thought she might faint. Was it broken?
That didn’t matter. Gritting her teeth, she forced her weight down on the damaged joint, and though the pain brought tears to her eyes she was able to stand.
Moving far more slowly then she would have liked, but as fast as her damaged ankle would allow, she made her way towards Nid’aigle.
Please, please, please let me get there in time… To Be Strong: Part TwoMorgaine didn’t know how long she wandered in the woods, trying to head in the direction she knew lead roughly towards Nid’aigle. Without a road to follow the sun was her only guide, and using it to gauge her direction also meant she was very much aware of how far it was travelling across the sky. She knew it had to have been several hours at least, and she wanted to scream with frustration at her own inability to move any faster. How many people were dying while she hobbled through the woods like a cripple? How far away would the slavers get with her friends before she could send the elves to help them?
She collapsed several times, her damaged ankle flatly refusing to hold her weight anymore, but each time she hauled herself back up bodily by the trunk of a tree. The joint felt like it was swollen inside her boot, though she didn’t want to take the time she would need to actually stop and inspect it. If she actually saw the damage, it was entirely possible the psychological discomfort would just make it hurt worse.
“Stop.”
Morgaine jerked in surprise at the sound of a voice after hours of no noises except her own painful whimpering and the birds in the woods. With the loss of her concentration on forward momentum, her injured leg buckled and she fell with an agonized gasp. Despite the pain that was making her want to hack her foot off, however, she forced herself to look for the person who had spoken.
Emerging from the trees was an elf in light leather armor- a sentry. A second was not far behind the first. At first both of them were looking at her with stern frowns, clearly suspicious. But when they saw the obvious pain she was in, concern edged into their expressions.
“Who you?” the first speaker asked, his Kythian painfully bad. “Hurting? Been fight?”
“Kolanth was attacked,” she said- speaking in Elvish, not Kythian. “Courdonians. We need help.”
She didn’t know all the words she needed to say what she wanted to say- that the attackers were slavers, that the elves needed to hurry because it had already taken far too long for her just to get there- but she didn’t need to. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the two sentries locked eyes and scowled. One of them ran off into the forest, presumably to alert his fellows, while the one who had spoken knelt beside her.
“You can speak Elvish?” he asked, tilting his head curiously.
“A little,” she answered. “Belial Braham is my friend. He is teaching me. Just please use small words.”
“Ahhh, I see,” the elf said. He frowned, seemingly trying to think of simple terms she might understand. “The other elf will tell my brothers what is happening. What about you? You are cut, I can see this. Is something wrong with your legs?”
“Hurt my ankle… my foot. I think it’s broken.”
The elf shook his head, an amused smile on his face. “It isn’t. You would not be able to walk at all if it was. Let me see.”
She shifted so that he could get at her damaged foot. It took all of her self control not to scream when he pulled her boot off, though he did so as gently as he could. The ankle in question was badly swollen, covered in purple bruises, and when he jostled it Morgaine whimpered involuntarily.
“A sprain. A bad sprain, but not broken at least. Still,” there was a light of respect in the sentry’s eyes when he looked back up at her. “You walked all the way from Kolanth to Nid’aigle on this? You have a strong spirit, human.”
She smiled thinly. “Thank you, but… could you carry me? I don’t think I could stand again.”
The elf shrugged, “I was going to even if you didn’t ask. But how did you escape with this wound? You are cut, so the Courdonians must have caught you.”
As he picked her up and helped settle her on his back, Morgaine frowned. She still wasn’t really sure about the answer to that herself. “I did. He cut me, then walked away.”
“What?!”
“I don’t know. He cut me and walked away. I… I don’t have the words to explain in Elvish.”
The elf was silent for a while, obviously thinking hard. As the buildings of Nid’aigle came into view ahead of them, he said, “Then you must talk to someone who knows Kythian.”
It was late in the afternoon, and the elves who were out on the street watched with interest as the sentry trotted by with Morgaine on his back. Mingled throughout the crowd she saw figures in armor, who all seemed to be headed in the same direction as them; somehow the other sentry must have gotten back and signaled for the elven knights to gather. Morgaine glanced around hopefully for Belial, but he was nowhere immediately obvious and after a moment she gave up looking.
Finally they reached a small, squarish building set apart from the others. It had a wide open field beside it, with pells and horse hurdles and even a tilting arena. The sentry brought her inside the building, and set her down on a bench just in the doorway. She watched as knights filed passed, looking down at her curiously as she looked up at them, searching for one face in particular.
“Human,” a new voice said, in heavily accented but blessedly understandable Kythian. Morgaine looked up to see a blonde woman approach from further in the building. She had an air of command about her, and a muscular physique to back it up. “I am Anri Hasek, commander of the knights of Nid’aigle. Your Elvish is decent, but it is not good enough to convey all that we must know. Tell me what has happened, in your language. I will translate for these others.”
Morgaine winced. “Is there time for that? The people in Kolanth need help now!”
“Miss, by this point whatever was happening in Kolanth is already long over,” the elven woman said, not unkindly. “We will go after the slavers and retrieve your people, this I swear. But what you told my sentry about the nature of your injuries begs a great many questions that need answering. I will not lead my knights into an uncertain situation, and spend their lives like sand.”
The human woman couldn’t really argue with that- Anri was right. But her gut twisted, and she was overwhelmed with the sensation that she’d failed them somehow. If she’d just been a little faster, if she’d be able to slip away without being noticed and not gotten hurt…
“Morgaine?!”
The locksmith’s head snapped up. She knew that voice, she’d know it anywhere. Turning, she caught sight of the man she’d been longing to see, his amber eyes wide with astonishment to find Morgaine here. As he took in the lacerations on her, and the mutilated state of her clothes, his confusion turned into horror.
“Belial!” Morgaine called. She instinctively tried to stand so she could go to him, but cried out in pain as her ankle reminded her of the way it had been mistreated over the last few hours. Her leg crumpled, and the elven commander was forced to catch Morgaine under her armpits so she wouldn’t fall. Morgaine heard Belial make a strangled noise of panic, and in spite of everything that was going on a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. He never changed.
“Sir Braham, you know this woman?” Anri remarked, glancing at him. Seemingly unaware of the baffled looks he was getting from his fellow elves, or the scrutinizing look in his leader’s eyes, he gently took Morgaine’s weight into his own arms and settled her gently back onto the bench. The human woman leaned her face into his armored elbow, wishing the current circumstances would have allowed her the luxury of breaking down in his arms.
“I do,” he said, gently stroking the locksmith’s head until she had collected herself enough to sit up again. Looking up into his leader’s face, he said softly, “I love her.”
Anri gave no indication that she felt anything at this assertion. After a moment, she shrugged. “Be that as it may, right now she is a witness to a crime, and you are a knight with a job to do. Duty must come first, Sir Braham.”
Morgaine was surprised to see Belial bristle a little at this remark. The human woman had only seen that look in his eyes once before, when he’d taken offense to some rather unflattering assumptions she’d made about his intentions towards her almost a year ago. She knew he was angry, but not because he disagreed with Anri. It was because he was insulted that his commander felt the need to remind him of his responsibilities in the first place.
Still, he said nothing to indicate his annoyance, instead saluting to the elven woman in calculatedly cool silence. He glanced back down at Morgaine, the anger in his bright amber eyes transmuting into worry.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but… please stay safe, Morgaine.”
She reached out and gave his gauntleted hand a squeeze. “You too, love.”
He squeezed back briefly, before pulling away and continuing down the hall. Anri refocused her attention on Morgaine, and coughed slightly.
“You were in a hurry, as I recall?”
Though she didn’t take her eyes away from Belial’s retreating back until he was lost in the crowd, Morgaine complied with Anri’s request. She explained how the Courdonian attack had come seemingly out of nowhere, how she’d escaped out a window while Master Smithson distracted the soldiers, how she’d snuck out of town, and the odd encounter with the magic-wielding Courdonian at the edge of the village.
“After the magic paralyzed me, the mercenary grabbed me,” she said. “He cut my face and arm, ripped up my clothes, and then he just left. He grinned at me and left. After the magic wore off I came here.”
“As I thought; the attack on Kolanth is a diversion,” Anri said with a scowl. “The Courdonians were counting on you not being able to communicate with us and tell us how you got hurt. They just wanted us to see your injuries and fly to the rescue of the human village- leaving Nid’aigle unprotected. And we almost did. But they miscalculated; their chosen mark knew enough Elvish to give the sentries information that painted a very suspicious picture and gave us pause.”
The elf shook her head, “I’d be willing to bet as soon as we ride for Kolanth, there will be a second force waiting to take Nid’aigle.”
“That sounds like a lot of effort to go to for slavers,” Morgaine remarked, frowning. Anri sighed.
“I’m sure Sir Braham has told you this, but Nid’aigle is the last great stronghold of the elves in Kyth. There are four-hundred of us here; that’s a pretty big payday for the slavers if they can pull it off. But if they can’t, they still have the human villagers they kidnapped from Kolanth as a consolation prize.” She turned, clearly getting ready to walk down the hall where the rest of the knights were waiting. “It is a well laid trap, but not insurmountable. We just need to trigger their trap in a controlled manner, and once the immediate threat is neutralized we can rescue the villagers.”
Morgaine wanted to object, but she knew it was pointless. The elven commander was right, rushing out to save the people of Kolanth would be moot if it resulted in the elven city falling. She looked down at her hands, helplessness and anger constricting her heart like a vice.
“Braham must really be fond of you,” Anri said suddenly, not looking at Morgaine. “I haven’t seen him get that angry about something in a long time.”
The locksmith had to smile at that, despite her black mood. “I think he was more upset you thought he would put me before the task at hand.”
“Oh, he was,” Anri said. “But you weren’t looking at his face when he helped you sit back down; you were looking at the inside of his elbow. You might not have seen it, but there was murder in his eyes- he wanted badly to get at whoever did this to you.”
Morgaine gaped at the elf, completely at a loss for words. Anri shrugged. “He’ll get his chance very shortly, make no mistake of that. And a little bit of anger is good for a knight- gives them an edge while fighting. I just hope he can keep a clear head and not let those emotions build so that they cloud his concentration.”
Leaving Morgaine on that chilling note, Anri walked away down the hall.
* * * * *
When Anri explained to the knights of Nid’aigle why they had been summoned- and why Morgaine was sitting in the lobby of the command post covered in injuries- Belial had been utterly horrified.
The Courdonians. It was always the thrice-cursed Courdonians.
It was strange; normally when he fought the slavers (and he fought them fairly often) he just felt a tired sort of pity towards them. These people who could not see the simple beauty of life and the sanctity of the individual, who cared only for their own desires. They were evil and twisted, and needed to be stopped, but they also suffered for their lack of empathy in a way they would never really understand.
But when he’d seen the way they’d hurt Morgaine, how she couldn’t even stand on her own, a spark of rage had kindled in his chest. When Commander Anri explained the trap they had set, and Belial learned the way both his love and the village that was a second home to him had been used, he’d wanted to gut something right then and there.
He didn’t, however. Once the debriefing was finished and the counter-plan was set in motion, instead Belial went looking for Morgaine again. She had been taken to the infirmary attached to the command post, and was sitting on the edge of a bed with her foot looking much less swollen. She looked up with a smile when she saw Belial walk into the room.
“I thought you would have gone already,” she said.
“The commander’s plan will take some time to put into motion,” he replied, sitting next to her on the small bed. “First we must appear to rush to Kolanth, and trigger their attack here. That will take an hour or so to do, given travel time.”
“I presume you aren’t actually going to Kolanth?” she asked.
Belial chuckled. “Always quick to the uptake; no, we aren’t. At least not all of us. Half of one squad is going, with an illusion placed over them to make it appear that there are far more than there actually are. They will alert those waiting in Kolanth, who will signal for the attack to begin here. But instead of trapping us, we will have trapped them.”
Morgaine sighed, leaning backwards across the bed. “Belial… I know you have to prioritize the elves, and it would be stupid to just walk right into what we know is a trap, but I-”
He pulled off one of his gauntlets and brushed her face with gentle fingers. “I know. Believe me Morgaine, I know. I’m worried about the our friends in Kolanth too. I know the atrocities that Courdon is capable of. Do you think I do not want to fly to their rescue, orders or no?”
She leaned into his touch, sighing. “Sorry.”
“There is no need to apologize; I told you, I understand.”
Morgaine sat up again, and kissed him. He returned the gesture, protectively drawing her wounded body close as if to draw her pain into himself. Then, reluctantly, he pulled away.
“You have to go,” she guessed. “Come back safe, alright?”
He stood, giving her chin one last caress with his fingers. “Don’t worry, my dearest. The Courdonians are sadistic and ruthless, but we have faced them before. We can handle them.”
* * * * *
Belial’s hands clenched and unclenched on his spear. At his waist he had also had a sword, and a dagger fixed to the back of his belt as a last resort weapon, but he had always preferred the range of pole weapons. His uncanny hand-eye coordination and aim made him deadly with a set of javelins.
The forest at the edge of Nid’aigle was quiet, but it was a deceptive sort of calm. Even if Belial couldn’t see them, he knew the mercenaries were out there. Soon enough they’d launch their assault. He’d already sent a prayer up to Lord Woo that none of his comrades would be killed in this fight. He didn’t ask that they not be hurt- that was ridiculous- but he hoped against all reasoning that no one would be killed. Especially since there were still the villagers in Kolanth to rescue.
He heard a soft owl call, followed by a series of short frog chirps. That was the signal. The Courdonians were finally on the move. In spite of his buzzing nerves, Belial stopped worrying his spear. The last thing they needed now was for the telltale clinking of his gauntlets to give away his presence.
Finally, he could hear them; the steady footfalls of approaching mercenary soldiers. They weren’t mounted, thank the Woo. Their approach from the forest meant that the undergrowth was too dense for horses. Small favors could make a world of difference.
They were close now, he could see birds and small animals nearby darting for cover through the eye holes in his helmet. A few yards away, another knight met Belial’s eyes and pointed up into the trees. Belial nodded, and as raised his spear as slowly as he could to minimize the sound of metal on metal from his armor. Then, clenching his teeth, he sliced at a rope that was barely visible in the higher branches.
There was a tremendous crash, and the screams of the mercenaries, as a dozen huge limbs crashed down out of the trees above them. Without waiting for them to figure out what had happened, Belial darted out of his cover and rushed the men, his entire squad doing the same.
Though a good few of them had been killed or pinned by the trap and their battle formation was well and truly broken up, the mercenaries were too well trained to go down without a fight. As Belial charged the first of them, spear lowered, the Courdonian immediately brought up his shield and diverted the blow.
But Belial had not been a knight for over three-hundred years for nothing. Using the curve of the shield as against it’s wielder, he brought the spear down and slammed the blade into the crack at the back of the mercenary's knees. The man cried out in pain, his legs buckling, and Belial drew the blade back and rammed it through the eyehole of the enemy’s visor.
He felt sick, as he always did when a battle started. But he shoved the feeling away, concentrating instead on the memory of Morgaine’s injuries, the mental image of her hobbling all the way to Nid’aigle from Kolanth on her bad ankle. What she’d endured was nothing to this. What these monsters put her through, what they were planning to do to Smithson and the tavern keeper and all of their other friends from Kolanth, it could not be ignored.
The anger inside of him spiked again, and when the next Courdonian came at him he was ready. This time it was a swordsman, who tried to cut at Belial’s legs the same way he’d dispatched the shield-wielding mercenary. The elf caught the sword on his spear’s handle, and took advantage of his weapon’s greater length to twist it and slam the man’s helmet. The spear’s blade wasn’t nearly heavy enough to do any real damage, but the loud clattering was enough of a distraction to make the man drop his guard and stumble. That was all the opening Belial needed to slice through the man’s throat.
He didn’t even have time to decide if he felt sick or triumphant about that, because another mercenary was on him almost instantly. This one had a small silver band hanging from his sword belt, which sparkled in the light and caught Belial’s eye. He recognized it instantly, but too slow- the mercenary touched one of the markings etched into the silver, and Belial cried out as lightning jumped from the band into his chest. He was blown backwards and off his feet, and he felt his muscles twitch and spasm as pain arced through his body. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think.
The talisman wielding Courdonian waited until the electrical current had stopped before following up his attack, but as soon as the pain started to ebb Belial could see the man bring up his sword. Gritting his teeth, the elf forced his arm to move, bringing his spear around so that the iron shod base slammed the mercenary in the back of his knee. He stumbled, but lying on the ground as he was Belial didn’t really have the chance to follow up on the opening. The elf tried to scramble to his feet, but felt a burst of pain as the Courdonian slammed him on the back with his sword.
Panting hard, every muscle in his body quivering with pain, his veins searing with the liquid fire of adrenaline, Belial took his spear in both hands and slammed the blunt end towards the man again. The enemy caught it in his free hand, wrestling Belial for control of the weapon even as he tried to stick the elf with his sword.
Belial waited until the enemy had almost succeeded in yanking the spear away; then he struck. Lashing out with his left leg, Belial hooked the mercenary by the knee and yanked hard, pulling him off his feet. The Courdonian let go of the spear, crying out in surprise, and fell backwards with a clatter of armor. Almost at once Belial lurched up, using his spear as an improvised cane. Then, he drove the blade into the man’s neck before he had time to rise.
Belial yanked his spear free, riding high on the battle fever. He looked around for someone in mercenary armor that was not presently engaged by an elven knight. Next opponent, next fight-
He felt something heavy slam into his right arm, and a split second later the weight transmuted into a lance of agony that bit deep into his skin. His spear fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, and he could feel blood welling up under his armor. The elf spun away, finding himself face to face with another mercenary. The weapon, which he’d inadvertently wretched out of the enemy’s grasp, was a small but heavy battle ax. The head was no more than four inches tall, but the lead weighted handle gave it power that belied it’s small size. It had punched easily through Belial’s armor and chain mail, to embed itself in the arm underneath.
The mercenary pulled a second ax from his belt. No doubt his first blow had been to disarm and disable Belial’s dominant hand; this one would be aimed to kill.
As he brought his arms back to deliver the blow, however, Belial grabbed the hilt of his sword with his left hand and yanked it out of the sheath. The pommel struck the enemy knight directly in the throat, and despite his armor he gagged from the impact. Taking advantage of the split second of distraction, Belial aimed a second blow at the man’s head, leaving a deep dent in the mercenary’s helmet. The other man staggered back, and when Belial struck him a third time he fell.
Panting hard, the knight kicked the visor of the mercenary’s helmet back, and drove the sword down- aiming with the blade this time. He had to be sure of it.
He turned, the adrenaline making him momentarily oblivious to the ax still embedded in his arm. With blood roaring in his ears he searched for his next opponent, but to his surprise he found there was none. A few seconds later, his ability to perceive sound returned and he realized why; a horn in the distance was signalling a retreat. The Mercenaries had realized their plan was a failure, and they were leaving. They already had human prizes from Kolanth, they didn’t need to spend lives pointlessly trying to get the elves when they were well obviously still well defended.
Almost instinctively Belial took a few steps after them, but at that moment the pain in his arm really hit him, and he realized how stupid an idea that was. He knew better than to try and pull the ax head out- it would help slow the loss of blood after all- but the injury was still a very bad one. He’d lose the use of his arm permanently if it wasn’t seen to.
“Form up!” the squad leader called. “Everyone gather ‘round me, I need to inventory our injuries. Then we’ll reunite with the other squads and hear the reports of their skirmishes elsewhere in the forest.”
Belial turned to obey, but as he took a step towards the commander black spots exploded in his vision. He realized dimly that even though he’d left the blade in place, he must have lost a lot more blood then he realized after all. A quick glance at his arm confirmed this; crimson rivers were flowing from every crack and crevice in the metal. He was determined to power through it, but the next step he took was his last. He was dimly aware of his fellows crying out in alarm as he fell forwards, before blackness consumed his mind.
* * * * *
When Belial’s consciousness returned, the first thing he was aware of was singing. He opened his eyes, turning his head to see that he was back in the infirmary. The singing was coming from Morgaine, who was still sitting on the cot where she’d been when he saw her last. Only now instead of sitting on that cot with her, he was lying on an adjacent one.
He vaguely realized the song she was singing was some sort of hymn. He’d never heard her sing, except when she was drunk, which wasn’t so much singing as shouting melodically. She was completely sober now, and as he let her voice wash over him he was surprised by how pretty it was. The young woman wasn’t going to win any prizes for her singing, but it was still nice to listen to.
“I didn’t know you could sing,” he remarked when she reached the end of her song, startling her. His own voice was harsh and gravelly, and edged with weariness from the blood loss and general exertion. Morgaine looked down at him with a smile.
“I used to be in the church choir, back home in Cypress Springs. But that was something I did when I was a child, and I didn’t want to keep doing it in Kolanth where I was trying to take on a new identity as an adult.”
He closed his eyes again. “You should sing more often, even if you’re not in a choir. It’s nice.”
She chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Her voice became more serious as she added, “It’s close to midnight now. You’ve been out a long while. The healers fixed the worst of the damage to your arm, but they didn’t have the energy to repair it all the way with s-so many others h-hurt.”
The stammer that entered her voice was not missed by Belial, and he turned to her again, opening his eyes. “What’s the matter, love?”
“I… I was helping the healers, you know holding wounds shut and whatnot. But after an hour there was so much blood all over my hands, and my clothes. Th-there was just so much blood. I went outside, and, and…”
He reached a hand towards her, and she caught it with her own. Now that he looked, he could see her dress was splattered with crimson. “Did you throw up?” he asked gently. When she looked at him with surprise, he smiled back. “It’s alright; most people do, the first time. I know I did. Don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of.”
She adjusted her hand so that her fingers twined in his. “I just feel so helpless. I was too late to save Kolanth, I’m not strong enough to fight with you, and I can’t even do this to help you.”
“Morgaine, you’ve already done more than enough,” he said, pulling at her hand gently so that she would look at him. “You warned us of what was coming, and averted a potential disaster for my people. We owe you a very great debt for that, and it will be repaid. Nid’aigle will not abandon our friends from Kolanth, I swear it.”
She shook her head, still not looking convinced. But instead of arguing further, she leaned forwards so that her head was resting on their joined hands, and sang. To Be Strong: Part ThreeBelial stared at Morgaine, as if unsure of what he’d just heard. “You… you want to come with us?”
Morgaine nodded, her hands clenching on her dress. It was the same dress she’d arrived at Nid’aigle in the night before, torn and tattered from her misadventures and drenched in now brown blood from her help in the infirmary. Her short height meant none of the relatively tall elves had anything close to small enough to fit, at least not immediately onhand.
The two of them were still at the command post for the knights of Nid’aigle, though no longer in the infirmary. Morgaine had pulled Belial aside into a small room with a huge map of Corvus pinned to the wall, which was normally used for planning strategy. Presently it was empty, and which meant it was perfect for a private conversation.
Unfortunately, the human woman could tell from Belial’s expression that this conversation was not going to go at all perfectly.
“What would you even do, Morgaine? You’re not a warrior, you’re a locksmith. This is going to be incredibly dangerous, even for those of us who are experienced and trained to handle it.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I was hoping you might help me think of something. I just don’t want to sit around wringing my hands again. The villagers are depending on me, and I want to contribute to their rescue.”
“You already have, love. You brought word of what happened to us, in spite of a painful injury that most would not have been able to walk for ten minutes on, let alone the three hours you managed. You gave us the crucial knowledge that we needed to work out that the attack on Kolanth was just a diversion. You don’t have to be a superhero to make a difference.”
“But that’s not enough!” she insisted.
The elf sighed, leaning against the wall. “And why not?”
Morgaine took a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts in a way that she could explain coherently. “Once before, you told me that you wanted us to be equals. I want us to be equals too- but right now we aren’t. You keep going off on these dangerous missions, risking your life for Kyth. Meanwhile I just sit around at home making locks and praying to Woo that you’ll come back safely. I just feel so completely powerless, it’s driving me insane.”
Belial frowned, shifting uncomfortably at the reference to their previous argument. “Morgaine, that is taking what I said way, way out of context and you know it. I meant that I wanted us to be intellectual and social equals. I never meant that I wanted you to stand on the battlefield and risk your life as I do mine.”
“Why not?” she demanded, bristling. “Do you think I’m not capable?”
“Right now, I know you’re not capable,” he answered flatly. “War is not a game. I trained in combat, strategy, diplomacy, field triage and wilderness survival for three years as a page before I was allowed to go anywhere near a battlefield. Even then I was still a squire for another five years before I was knighted.”
“Belial, I know I can’t help you fight,” Morgaine insisted. “I’m not asking to help fight. I just want to be useful somehow. You know that if I have nothing to do with myself I get into trouble, that’s why everyone back home thought I was such a nuisance. Usually when you’re gone I try to find things to distract myself with, but I have nothing to do here. I just keep thinking about all the things that could happen and-”
“The answer is no,” Belial interrupted. “Please listen to me, because this is important; you have done enough. More than enough.”
“No I haven’t!” she snapped. “Maybe you think so, but it’s killing me having to sit around here and just wait!”
The elf scowled. “And what would you even do? What do you think you could contribute to the rescue effort?”
“I already said I don’t know! I admitted I have no experience with this, and that’s why I came to you!” Morgaine clenched her fists, looking down at the ground. “You know what goes on in these situations. I’m sure you can think of something I could help with. Cleaning up the camp maybe, or looking after the horses. Please, Belial, help me.”
“I can’t, Morgaine, don’t ask this of me. I love you, and the last thing I want is to put you in harm’s way,” Belial said, desperation edging into his voice.
“Oh, so this is about how you can’t stand the thought of me being in danger then?” the woman asked snidely. “You want to hover and protect me, like a pretty princess dressed in white high up in a tower? This isn’t a fairy tale and I’m not your damsel in distress, Belial.”
The elf jerked back, his teeth clenching. “You’re right, it’s not a fairy tale. Shall I outline for you then exactly what it is you’re asking for? What chasing down slavers on the run is like? They will have all the villagers packed together into wagons, as tightly as they can fit, standing to make even more room. No one will be permitted to sit, for there is no room to sit, and they will be kept like that all hours, day and night. They will receive only scant rations of food and water, because stopping to let them eat or drink means more potential to get caught. Along the way some will die, either from wounds they received during the initial battle or mistreatment on the road. The corpses will be abandoned in a ditch off the road, where they are less likely to be found by authorities, and left there to rot.”
Morgaine’s face paled, but Belial was not finished. “When we finally catch up to them, we can’t just attack immediately. They will see us coming, and use the villagers as hostages to keep us at bay. Instead we must pick them off, a few at a time, making it seem to happen accidentally. Once we have whittled down their numbers we can attack them- and all of them must be killed. No quarter. All of our resources will go to keeping the captives alive on the trip back, so we simply cannot afford to take any prisoners. It will be a bloodbath.”
The young woman was quivering now, but she set her chin stubbornly. “I can handle-”
“No, you can’t!” he shouted, his temper visibly snapping. “You can’t even face a room full of injuries without losing it, you have no place on a battlefield! If you come you will make yourself into a nuisance that is in the way at best, and a deadly liability that we must risk ourselves to protect at worst! Is that what you want, Morgaine? Are you so thrice-cursed set on learning the hard way how completely helpless you’d be that you want us to die focusing on your safety when we should be concentrating on our own?”
It was obvious from the way his expression morphed from anger to horror almost as soon as he’d spoken that Belial knew he’d gone too far. But it was too late; those blunt, cruel words couldn’t possibly be unsaid now. Morgaine jerked backwards from her friend, and squeezed her eyes shut against hot tears of anger and hurt. Before the elf could say anything, she turned and fled the room.
* * * * *
Try as he might, Belial couldn’t find Morgaine before the commander found him with orders that they were to move out in thirty minutes. That meant he needed to suit up, which would take at least twenty minutes on it’s own, giving him no time to keep searching- let alone the time he’d need to apologize for his monumental blunder.
How could he have possibly said something like that? He, who knew better than anyone her strength of spirit, how smart she was, the depths of her compassion… What kind of selfish monster was he that he’d guilt her by implying she wanted to get others killed?
So caught up was Belial in his own self-flagellating that he barely registered the speech Commander Anri gave once the knights had gathered at the edge of the city. When they moved out, it was because Warblade followed the other horses in the line automatically- Belial was too wrapped in misery to give him the order to move. It wasn't until an hour later when they reached Kolanth that Belial was able to drag himself back into the real world, and what he saw there just made the elf feel even worse.
The village was deathly silent. Doors hung off their hinges, livestock animals that had escaped from broken paddocks milled about aimlessly, and every so often he caught sight of the corpse of a villager who’d simply proved too combatative to be worth capture.
Belial knew these people. He’d watched most of them grow up in Kolanth since they were children- he’d watched their parents and grandparents grow up in the village as well. And here they were, left in the street for scavengers…
“Squad five, burial detail,” Commander Anri called back along the line. “And catch any loose animals you can find and secure them- when we get the villagers back they’ll need all the viable resources they have to rebuild.”
The squad she had named broke off from the remainder of the company to obey, but it was not Belial’s squad so he rode on with the rest. However, barely another two hours passed before they found the first signs that the Courdonian abuses were taking their toll on the Kythian captives. A sentry in the woods approached the main force, his grim expression telling them before he opened his mouth that the news was bad.
“There’s a body in the woods,” he said. “One of the villagers, looks like. He has a stab wound from a knife on his shoulder, and another on his torso. It looks as if he survived the initial raid upon the village, but died of blood loss on the road. The Courdonians left him for the carrion birds.”
Despite the fact that Belial had known this would happen, and warned Morgaine specifically that it would, his mouth tightened when he heard the sentry’s report. Anri glanced around, and spotted Belial.
“Braham, you know the villagers in Kolanth- go with the sentry and see if you can confirm the identity of this unfortunate. We haven’t the time to see to him properly, but at least we can find out who it is and pay respects to sooth his spirit and help him pass on in peace.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Belial replied automatically, though he wished she had not asked it of him. The last thing he wanted just then was to see more familiar corpses.
When he caught sight of the motionless form through the trees, for just a moment he was completely unable to breath; he recognized the man alright. It was Brennan Smithson, the locksmith.
He covered his face, shaking his head bitterly. Now he was even more glad Morgaine wasn’t there; he didn’t want her to remember her master this way, but as she had last seen him, stubbornly ordering her around. But it was also another reason for her to feel guilty for not reaching the elves sooner, and she’d probably hate Belial even more now for stopping her from doing anything that might have somehow helped. A moot anger, because Smithson had no doubt already been dead by sometime the night before, but he wouldn’t in the least blame her for it.
Speaking softly in Kythian, the language Smithson had spoken in life, Belial murmured, “Lord Woo, You are always faithful and quick to show mercy. Master Smithson was violently taken from us. Come swiftly to his aid, have mercy on him, and comfort his family and friends by the power and protection of your feathers. Guide our feet as we seek those who committed this act, and let justice be done by this man’s soul. Amen.”
He turned back to the sentry with a sigh. “Let’s catch back up to the others.”
Belial slipped back into the column of elven knights wordlessly, absorbed by his thoughts. It wasn’t until he heard a soft cough that he realized someone had come up beside him. Looking up, he saw Anri’s first Lieutenant, Sir Gavin Monfort. Gavin was a very well respected elf, and believed to be the oldest of any of the knights of Nid’aigle- though he never told anyone exactly how old he was. He was also a very kind man, and made it a point to know all the elves in the company on at least a semi-personal level. He was one of the few who had known just how badly Belial had taken having to kill people, and done his best to comfort the younger elf when Belial was still a squire.
“Ah, forgive me Sir Gavin, I was woolgathering,” Belial said apologetically.
“It looked a great deal more like brooding to my eyes,” the older knight remarked. “You’ve been very melancholy since we left- worried about the villagers?”
Belial winced. “Of course I am, but that’s not really…”
“Something to do with the young woman who warned us about the Courdonians, then?”
Belial jerked in surprise, looking up at Gavin with astonishment at this rather on-the-mark guess. The older elf chuckled. “Don’t look so shocked Sir Braham. When one lives for a very long time, they become familiar with certain hallmark signs. And you two were not exactly being subtle about how very affectionate you are towards each other yesterday. I can see why you would care for her- to make it all the way from Kolanth to Nid’aigle on foot to warn us about the Courdonians, with a badly sprained ankle, she must have a great deal of strength and empathy.”
The younger elf flushed a bit, then looked away. “We had an argument this morning. She wanted to come along, because she felt like she was useless and had somehow failed her people by not getting to us in time for us to save them.”
“And you told her that she could not; she would serve no one in following behind us, not even herself. She would only become frustrated with her inability to provide any real assistance.” Gavin shrugged. “That is hardly the first time such has happened. It can’t be helped really; if someone cares for you, of course they want to help you when you are putting your life in danger. Every knight with a beloved has that argument at some point.”
“I know that, but it’s not the main problem,” Belial said, fiddling with his horse’s reins. “She was being stubborn, and I.. I lost my temper. It lead me to say some things that were unnecessarily cruel.”
Gavin raised an eyebrow, slowing his horse so that the other knights could move ahead of them. Belial slowed as well, knowing that he was being asked to continue. The young knight looked away, frustration and guilt welling up in his chest again. Once they were out of earshot of the others, he said softly, “I told her, in detail, what hunting slavers is like. And when she still wouldn't back down I said that… that she would be a nuisance, and a liability. And I accused her of trying to get knights killed in her defense to satisfy her own conscience.”
The older knight looked shocked; no doubt he was surprised to hear that the normally easygoing Belial would say something so blunt and callous. Belial wanted to hit something to vent his frustration, but there was nothing in front of him except Warblade’s neck. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I never get this angry, and I love her, so why is she so good at pushing my limits? How can the one I care for more than anyone else also be the person who drives me the most insane?”
“You’re angry because you want to protect her,” Gavin replied gently, putting a hand on Belial’s should. “And she obviously does not want to be protected.”
“But she’s wrong about this!” Belial insisted. “She can’t fight, she would just get hurt!”
“Of course, but that doesn't matter to her. What does matter is that her friends and loved ones are in danger, and she has no outlet for that. She’s not thinking with ration, she’s thinking with passion. You can’t try to argue passion with ration, it will never work.”
Gavin sighed. “ Braham, it’s clear to me that you are both strong willed and care for each other deeply. But you have yet to learn the limits of control. A relationship works on the basis of compromise- not just compromise on when to take the next step in physical intimacy or who does what chore around the house. Sometimes you will be faced with a situation where you both feel so strongly about an issue that neither of you is willing to just back down and accept the other’s will. So instead of forcing one to break, which is a controlling, domineering relationship and not a loving one, both of you have to bend.”
The way Gavin spoke- of a relationship that was based on control and domination- reminded Belial horribly of the fear that Morgaine had expressed when they’d had their argument the year prior. She’d brought it up too, he remembered, reminding him of his promise back then that they would be equals. He realized upon reflection that Morgaine had been trying to compromise, asking for his input on the issue of how she could be of help because she knew she was out of her depth. She had only become angry and stubborn when he refused to listen.
“Oh, Woo, I am such an idiot.” He clenched hard on Warblade’s reigns, looking up into the trees despairingly as he realized how completely he had betrayed Morgaine’s trust. “I wouldn’t blame her if she decided never to have anything to do with me again.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Braham,” Sir Gavin advised, giving him a light punch on the arm. “Everyone makes mistakes, and every relationship is going to have rough patches. If you’re thinking you should never have any arguments with the woman, you’re setting your expectations far too high. But it all comes back to compromise- what’ll determine if you two last in the long run is if, once you’ve both separated for a while and cooled off, you can come back together and hash through the disagreement.”
When Belial thought back to the hurt and betrayal in Morgaine’s eyes, he wasn’t so convinced they could “hash out” this particular disagreement. And what happened if he kept losing his temper with her? He’d never considered himself a stubborn or angry person, but he and Morgaine spent so much time together that she was starting to find a side to his personality that even he hadn’t known existed.
“I don’t know, sir. I just don’t know.” PromiseWhile it had never been Belial’s intention to keep his relationship with Morgaine a secret from his fellow elves, it was also not something he’d broadcasted particularly openly. After all, that was his business, what should anyone else care? He had few close friends outside of the knight company. If he’d expected any reaction out of them, it would have been politely feigned interest.
But after the Courdonian sacking of Kolanth, any semblance of privacy he’d had in the matter was completely obliterated. A good many of his fellow knights had seen him interacting with Morgaine, and had heard his declaration to Commander Anri that he was in love with the human woman. He had no shame regarding the relationship, and saw no shame in admitting the truth of it- especially not when Morgaine was clearly hurt and terrified, and needed his shoulder to lean on.
However, much to his annoyance, his fellow elves had taken an interest. As rumors spread among the citizens of Nid’aigle, he found himself getting odd sidelong glances in crowds. When he looked directly at whoever was doing the staring they looked away, of course, but he was a knight. He knew when he was being observed.
Then the questions started. They were casual at first, not even really framed as questions. “I’ve heard you’re involved with a human in Kolanth,” or “You’re quite close to the woman who came to warn us about the Courdonians.” He wasn’t sure where these not-inquiries were going, at first, but then came another line of questioning that clarified the issue.
“A pity humans have such short lives, isn’t it?”
“Are you certain it’s wise to encourage her like this? You must be planning to end it soon, a human and an elf could never work together long term.”
“But surely you can’t mean it to last long- she’ll only die and break your heart.”
Of course, Belial was no fool. He knew humans had much shorter lifespans than elves. They were lucky to live half a century- seldom did they exceed eighty at their very oldest. Elves, on the other hand, could last five hundred years before illness or accident claimed their lives- the Old Ones were seven to eight hundred.
But thinking about that fact in reference to Morgaine… Well he didn’t want to think about it. Despite the rough patches that they occasionally went through in their relationship, Belial found that with every day he spent in her company he fell more and more in love with her. She was funny, compassionate, protective, patient… and she loved him as much as he loved her, a miracle that still boggled the elf’s mind. When he’d realized how he felt about Morgaine, he’d never dared to imagine she might reciprocate. This past year had easily been the happiest of his life.
And his own people seemed determined to ruin that happiness by reminding him of how very fleeting and fragile it was.
He finally broke down one day and spoke to Morgaine about it. At first she’d panicked, thinking he was leading up to the dissolution of their relationship by bringing the subject up- a panic that reassured him, oddly enough, because it confirmed that she’d been thinking about it and didn’t want it to end what was between them either. He’d been quick to tell her he wasn’t planning to do any such thing, but it still took almost an entire afternoon of these reassurances and gentle affection to calm her down enough that she could look at the issue with her usual cool logic.
“I can’t really tell you what to do,” she admitted finally, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Believe me, I don’t want to hurt you that way for that long. But I can’t do anything about my humanity.”
“Nor would I ask you to, dearheart,” Belial replied firmly. “Where it possible to change your nature I would turn down the offer, a thousand times over. You are as you are, compromising for no one, and it is for exactly that reason I care for you so much.”
“You’re sweet, in a really hokey way,” she informed him with a smirk. “But sentiment isn’t going to address the question at hand.”
“I should rather just not think on it, frankly,” Belial admitted. “But my neighbors keep mentioning it, and it’s hard not to.”
Morgaine snorted, “Playing make-believe doesn’t make the problem go away. But you really should just ignore the doubters.” She hugged him, nuzzling his neck with her nose. “I love you, and I’m not planning to die any time in the directly immediate future. You waited when I needed time to decide how I felt about you. I’ll wait as long as you need to decide what to do about the differences in our lifespans. Other people’s opinions can go hang.”
“It is… just annoying,” Belial admitted. “And I am not accustomed to being annoyed about things. But elven etiquette stresses minding one’s own business and letting people alone when they indicate that they don’t want to have a particular conversation. And yet this one keeps coming up. It’s maddening.”
Morgaine chortled softly, taking his hand in hers and letting their fingers twine together. “My suggestion? Next time they start hassling you about it, throw ‘em in the river.”
That actually startled a laugh out of the knight. “Somehow I don’t believe violence will be a very good solution to the problem, love. But if you wanted to indulge in a little elf-ducking, I would not stop you.”
Morgaine didn’t want to, of course, it was far more effort than would have been practical. They let the conversation drift to other topics at that point.
But the question stuck to Belial’s mind like a burr.
One thing was certain; just ending his relationship to the locksmith was not the solution. Morgaine’s reaction to the subject, as well as the painful compression he felt in his own chest when he considered it, completely ruled that out. It would spare him no pain; if anything it would be even more agonizing than if she were to die, because he would know she was still alive somewhere, still loved him, and their separation was an entirely self-imposed one.
She was eighteen years old- in March she would be nineteen. Most human peasants lived to be around to fifty. Sixty was an optimistic estimate; if she lived as a noble and was very healthy and well cared for she might reach seventy or eighty, but by that point her health would be deteriorating dramatically and life would almost not be worth living for her anymore. That meant she had, roughly speaking, thirty or forty years left to her life. An eyeblink, in the centuries an elf might last.
Then again Belial was a rather poor sort of elf. He’d always felt more strongly connected to human culture than his own. Perhaps his falling in love with a human was simply the logical conclusion of that. He had cared for the humans in Kolanth, and even though he knew they would eventually die he continued to care for them. It was better to enjoy their company while they yet lived then to exile himself to Nid’aigle and see them not at all.
This thought, which occurred to him while he was exercising his destrier Warblade one morning, was a revelation. Of course; of course. It would serve nothing for him and Morgaine to separate, save forcing them to suffer unnecessarily far sooner then otherwise. And even if they weren’t together, he knew beyond a shadow of doubt that it would cleave his heart from his chest when she eventually died. The best solution, the only one that made any sense, was to enjoy what they had to the utmost while they still had it. If their years together were to be so very short, then at least they could make those years bright ones.
Hard on the heels of that realization came another- they couldn’t possibly make the most of their relationship living in different towns, an hour apart by elven horse and three by foot. Belial wanted, with an ache that was almost physical, for them to be able to share as many hours together as possible. To make the utmost of their time together.
He wanted Morgaine to marry him, that they could live together for as long as the Lord Woo allowed.
Bizarrely, this realization terrified and elated him in equal measure. Belial was happy, because he’d never in his wildest dreams thought he would care about someone enough to want to share his life with them. However, he was afraid, because he didn’t know how Morgaine would feel about it. She loved him- of that much he was certain- but she was also deathly afraid of being rushed into commitments. Her reaction to learning he was in love with her had not been embarrassment or amusement, which he might have expected. It had been pure, stark terror. She’d taken months to come around after that, and acknowledge that she felt the same way he did. He didn’t want to put her in that position again.
“Morgaine,” he asked her one day, when they were on their way to the local tavern for her weekly binge. “If you could choose, where would you like to be ten years from now?”
That question startled her. She glanced sideways at him, quirking an eyebrow in a way that suggested she knew there was more to the question then the obvious. But she let it pass, shrugging. “Hopefully with a lock shop of my own, by that time. Maybe enough money to send some to Dad, every so often.” She grinned broadly. “Hopefully fluent enough in Elvish by that time not to draw confused looks and stammer awkwardly quite so much.”
He’d laughed giving her a light shove that she jovially returned. But the statement implied more than she realized. There were no major elven settlements besides Nid’aigle left in Kyth. Any solitary elves that lived among humans would speak Kythian, negating the need for knowledge of Elvish. If she saw herself fluent in the language and needing to be in ten years, that implied she didn’t want to leave the area- or him.
He probed her with other such questions on various occasions, testing her receptivity to the idea, and she always answered in a way that was encouraging. And yet still he hesitated. Here, finally, the part of him that had been raised in elven culture was rearing it’s head. Elves spent decades on courtship, as he’d told Morgaine once, and it just felt so… rushed, to ask her for such a commitment when they’d only been an “official” couple for about eight months. They’d been friends for almost three years, and he’d been in love with her for a year and a half now, but that was still so rushed by elf standards…
But at nineteen she was plenty old enough in the eyes of human culture. Especially for a peasant. In some places she wouldn’t even be afforded the luxury of choice, instead having a marriage arranged for her so that she was effectively sold to a man of her father’s choosing.
Yet she was still so young. In her eyes she had her entire life ahead to live. His perspective was a skewed one, and his desires profoundly selfish. What right did he have to force her into a decision like that for the sake of his happiness and peace of mind?
One day in early October, his squad was deployed to deal with a group of thieves that were attacking travellers on the Ash Road. As had become his regular practice, he left a while before saddle-up to warn Morgaine that he would be gone. And as was her practice, she gave him an impassioned, emotional farewell, as if this might well be the last time she ever saw him.
“I love you, Belial,” she’d whispered in his ear and he picked her up into an embrace. “So please, please don’t die out there.”
“I’ll be back,” he answered soothingly. “I always come back, don’t I?”
“But that's not a promise you’ll come back this time,” she retorted, her voice thick. “Every time you go out there might be the last time, and I hate that. I mean it you idiot, come back safe, okay?”
That startled the elf, and he gently shifted her in his arms so that they were face to face. “This has really been bothering you, hasn’t it?”
“Why wouldn’t it have been?” she demanded. “This is important, and I know you have to do it, but… but I don’t want to lose you now that I’ve just barely found you.”
“Morgaine… I…”
He didn’t have the courage to say what he was thinking then, but her words lingered in his mind throughout the mission to fight the thieves. Of course, how could he have been so stupid. His longevity was in no way guaranteed, not with the work he did. She’d seen firsthand what sort of injuries he sustained time and time again, and it must have haunted her with terror. Even if she didn’t live to a ripe old age by human standards, she might still outlive him.
The elf returned from his assignment about two weeks later, and went almost immediately to find Morgaine. She was somewhat bemused when he invited her out for a ride on Warblade, but agreed.
For a time neither of them spoke; she simply leaned into his chest as the patient destrier ambled through the woods, and he leaned his chin on her shoulder. Finally, however, the young woman broke the silence.
“Romantic as this is, I get the impression you didn’t haul me off into the middle of the forest first thing when you got back for funsies,” she said, sitting up and turning to look over her shoulder at him. “What’s on your mind? Has something happened back in Nid’aigle?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “I… perhaps we should dismount, you might want to ah… not be on a moving horse.”
She looked at him very skeptically, but let him help her down from the saddle. He climbed off after her, tying Warblade’s reigns to a nearby bush.
“I dont know if I’ve ever told you about it,” he said turning towards her. “But there is an elven tradition that… You see…”
The knight’s voice faltered, and Morgaine quirked an eyebrow at him. “Yes?”
He coughed. “You see, when two elves wish to spend their lives together, they cement the union through a ceremony known as handfasting- it involves using ribbons or cords to tie their joined hands together. It predates Wooism, though in modern times often a priest of the Woo will oversee the ceremony and conduct the proper vows according to Wooist traditions.”
Belial swallowed hard. The look on Morgaine’s face was one of confusion, but understanding was starting to creep into her expression- he couldn’t yet tell how she felt about what he was getting at.
“To… to start the ceremony, first one of the two elves proposes to the other by sending a silk scarf to their beholden. If the scarf is returned, that is a refusal. If they wear the scarf around their neck, that’s a ‘maybe.’ But wrapping it around their wrist, the first step in binding their hands, is a ‘yes,’ and they will wear the scarf around their wrist until the handfasting. I… I know that is not how it is among humans, so forgive me if I don’t entirely do this right but… Since I am an elf, and you are a human, it seemed only right to sort of… combine things a little.”
He slowly knelt down in front of Morgaine, who he could see now was visibly quivering- then again so was he. Her expression was completely unreadable; it seemed as if a thousand emotions where warring for dominion behind her dark brown eyes.
“B-Belial…” she whispered.
“Morgaine, I love you more than life itself. Your smile, your laugh, everything about you. You taught me how to be happy again. You’re the best friend I could have ever asked for, and I want to give you as much happiness as you’ve given me.” he reached into his sleeve and slowly pulled out a length of pale blue silk.
“Morgaine, will you marry me?”
The locksmith clenched her eyes shut, and Belial realized that there were tears shimmering in the corners of them. She took the silk scarf with trembling hands, and the elf’s heart soared when he saw her gently wrap it around her wrist. She couldn’t quite tie it off- doing so with one hand would have already been difficult, and the fact that she was shaking so hard wasn’t making it any better. With an amused smile, he helped her get the silk done in a knot that would hold it.
Then, to his surprise, Morgaine flung herself at him, arms wrapping around his neck enthusiastically. She pressed her mouth against his, and after a moment of stunned paralysis, he pulled the young woman close and kissed her right back.
When they broke apart again, the elf realized both of them were crying. He laughed, gently reaching up with a thumb to wipe some of the moisture from Morgaine’s cheek.
“Is that a yes then?” he asked teasingly. She grinned, pressing her forehead against his.
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was… after what you said about how long we’d both live I’ve, I’ve been so afraid-”
He stroked the back of her head gently. “I’m sorry. It was never my intention to distress you. I just needed to think things through. But I love you, and nothing is going to get in the way of that anymore. I promise, no matter how long or short a time we may have together, I will do everything in my power to make that time the happiest of both our lives.”
She shook her head. “You’re such a sap. How about you shut up and kiss me again?”
With a laugh, he complied.
Prison Of the MindEven in mid January, the weather in Corvus was only barely what one might call nippy. Certainly it wasn’t cold enough to warrant more than the single blanket that Morgaine and her husband of a little over a month where presently sleeping under.
It was a strange novelty for her, sleeping in a bed with another person. It took some getting used to but it was… nice. She’d often fallen asleep against his shoulder, and he had occasionally dozed off leaning forward into her back. This was just a logical progression of that, and it was surprisingly comforting to feel him put an arm over her shoulder while he drowsed, or to wiggle in close to his chest if a draft pierced the blanket.
This night started like any other- the two of them were lying with their backs pressed against each other, sound asleep as the river burbled outside and the moon traced it’s arc across the sky. Morgaine was startled awake, however, when she felt a ripple of movement against her spine.
For a moment she blinked in drowsy confusion, not really processing what had woken her up. Then she felt it again, stronger this time, and glanced over her shoulder. Belial was still there, exactly as he’d been when they crawled into the bed together, but as she watched she realized his shoulder was twitching.
“Belial?” she murmured, rolling over and putting a gentle hand on his back. “You awake?”
If he heard her he gave no indication of it. Morgaine figured he must still be asleep- having a dream? But he’d never moved in his sleep before now…
She realized that he was panting now, the twitching spreading so that his entire body was fidgeting. A soft, almost inaudible moaning accompanied a particularly strong jerk, and Morgaine backed up instinctively.
“Beli-”
He thrashed, rolling on his back with a strangled shout. Morgaine squeaked in surprise. She could see the elf’s face now, and even in the darkness it was obvious that whatever he was seeing behind his eyelids was not agreeing with him. His expression was twisted into something halfway between a snarl and a grimace, and he was moaning more loudly now.
A nightmare? she thought, bewildered. It was the only explanation that made any sense. But she’d never assumed a nightmare could be this dramatic on the waking side of things. Before she had time to really process the ramifications of this, Belial suddenly thrashed again, and this time one of his arms flailed free of the covers and struck the locksmith in the face.
She yowled involuntarily in pain, rolling off the bed completely. The elf was a knight, and much stronger than he appeared. The blow hurt exquisitely, and Morgaine cupped a hand over her smarting cheek.
Risking a glance up over the edge of the bed, she saw that Belial still seemed to be asleep, despite the violence of his own movements and the noise Morgaine had made both upon being hit and when she fell off the bed. Something had to give here, and the human woman gritted her teeth.
“Belial!” she said, gently but hopefully loud enough to get his attention. Tentatively she reached out a hand towards him. “Belial, wake up!”
She grabbed his shoulder, intending to give him a gentle shake to rouse him- instead, he wrenched himself violently out of her grip with a wild shout, eyes flying open and arm swinging around to strike her. The woman yelped, shoved backwards again but managing not to fall this time. She looked in askance at her husband, who was sitting up now and staring at her as if she were a demon.
Well… actually he didn’t seem to be staring at her. It was almost like he was looking through her, at something only he could see. His pale eyes were so wide with panic that she could see the whites all the way around them, and he was quivering and panting like he’d just run a marathon.
“Belial?” she said softly. It didn't look like he had heard, at first. She repeated the call coaxingly a few more times, edging towards him tentatively until finally he blinked, seeming to realize she was there.
“Mor… Morgaine?” He asked, his voice so quiet and full of uncertainty that any annoyance she might have felt with him for hitting her was completely swamped by concern. She’d never heard him sound like that, as if he was a child that had gotten lost and didn’t know who to look to for help.
“Yes, it’s me,” she said edging back towards him slowly. Normally she might have responded to that question with something snarky, but just now being cruel to him even in jest felt like a physical impossibility. She put a hand on his arm, and felt her heart squeeze painfully when he jerked away from the touch.
“Easy, easy,” she murmurred. “It’s just me, love, you’re fine, you’re safe.”
He closed his eyes, visibly steeling himself, and then he allowed his still trembling arm to slide back into Morgaine’s outstretched palm. She let her hand rest there a moment, so he could reassure himself that the touch wasn’t a threatening one. Then, she slowly drew her fingers up his shoulder, until she was gently cupping the side of his chin in her hand. He sighed, the relief in his expression so profound it made Morgaine's stomach twist, and leaned into her touch as if it were a lifeline.
“See? You’re fine, it’s alright, I’ve got you. You’re home, you’re safe.”
Suddenly he sagged forwards, leaning his forehead against her shoulder. She put her arms around him, gently stroking his back and repeating the quiet reassurances until at long last he stopped quivering and his breathing returned to an even pace.
“You feeling better now?” she asked softly. He nodded, face still pressed against the fabric of her nightshirt.
“It will pass; it is hard to remember where I am at first, sometimes. But it will pass. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you.”
She smiled wanly. “This happen often then?”
“Not usually; once every month or two, roughly?” the knight shrugged. “I don’t usually keep track.”
They were silent for a while, Belial leaning on Morgaine’s support and her rubbing his back to keep his frazzled nerves settling. After a while she tentatively asked, “Do you… want to talk about it?”
“No,” he said, with such force behind the word Morgaine knew he absolutely meant it. In a gentler tone he added, “No. That will only make it worse. I should rather think of anything else.”
“Sounds fair,” the locksmith said. “It’s a little chilly out for swimming, so I guess a ducking in the river is out as a means to cheer you up. Gonna have to put my thinking cap on.”
Though he didn’t lift his head, the elf’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “You are ridiculous, Morgaine.”
“Least I’m fun. Now c’mon, help me think of something we can do for an hour or two to calm you down. If this is going to happen at least once a month from now on we should go ahead and establish a good way to cope with it. ” NewsAs soon as Morgaine opened the door, Belial could tell that something was wrong. Her face was flushed with embarrassment, and it seemed that every muscle in her body was quivering with tension. The elven knight had just returned to the home he now shared with her in Nid’aigle from a three week assignment in southwest Corvus. When he’d left, his newlywed wife had seemed perfectly fine. This was hardly the first time since they’d known each other that he’d gone off for days or weeks at a time for missions, so it couldn’t have been that.
“Morgaine, what’s wrong?” he asked, reaching towards her and gently brushing her cheek with his fingers. “Has someone been bothering you? I had not thought the other elves would do anything so overtly rude, but perhaps I overestimated-”
“No!” the human woman blurted, then she laughed somewhat breathlessly. “No, no, everyone’s been very kind. A bit stubborn and condescending, but nothing I can’t handle.”
“Then what’s wrong?” he demanded. “You’re shaking, I don’t think I’ve ever known you to seem so frightened.”
She smiled, though it was a wobbling expression. “I think you’ll want to sit down for this, love. Come inside, it’s… not as bad as you think. I’m just nervous.”
“About what?” he said again, growing frustrated and not a little frantic despite her assurances. He followed her into the house, but he was too keyed up to actually take her advice and sit down. Morgaine, for her part, sat down with a soft groan of relief. She swallowed visibly, then looked up at her husband with an expression very like a small child trying to explain a misbehavior to a parent, and hoping they wouldn’t be too angry.
“Belial you’re… you’re going to be a father.”
The knight stared at Morgaine, his mouth falling open. “Wha… you’re…?”
She nodded, her eyes shimmering with tears. Peeling back the bottom of her blouse, she showed him the faintest of bulges beginning to grow at her navel. “With twins.”
“M-Morgaine I… Th-that’s…” He knelt down in front of her and put his arms around her shoulders. Now he was shaking just as hard as she was, and he could feel tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. “That’s incredible. H-how long have you known?”
“Just a few days,” she said, squeezing him so tightly that it seemed she might never let him go. “I d-didn’t know how you’d feel about it. We’ve only been married a few months, and th-there were so few children here…”
“Elves don’t have children as easily as humans do,” he explained, leaning away just enough to wipe a tear away from her face. “It is a consequence of our long lives. But please don’t cry, my love, my heart. I am happy- this is the best news you could have given me.”
He leaned forwards, pressing his forehead into hers. She gave a watery chuckle, and he laughed in return. Soon both of them were sitting there, tangled in each other’s arms with tears flowing down their faces, laughing so hard their sides hurt.
“I think you’ll be a fantastic father,” Morgaine said, when finally they had run out of breath for laughing.
“And you will be like an eagle mother, protecting our chicks with ferocity that none would dare defy,” he replied. “I love you, Morgaine… and I know I will love our children as well.”
The human woman couldn’t think of a reply to make that would properly express her emotions in that moment. So instead she turned up her face, and kissed him. The Fragility of LifeWarning for major sads I am not kidding you guys.
Morgaine sat down in on the sofa with the weary sigh of someone much older than her twenty years of age. There were days she thought that she’d never smile again.
Admittedly, it had been a hard pregnancy- the sickness a lot of women got had lasted far longer than it should have, and the locksmith found herself practically bedridden for the last two months. She really should have expected that things wouldn’t go as well as she’d have liked. Certainly Belial had been frantic with worry for both her and their unborn children. The fact that Morgaine had told him long ago her own mother died birthing her didn’t help any. But ever the optimist, Morgaine was convinced she was just having a rough pregnancy because of her small size.
The locksmith glanced at the crib beside her; the only sound coming from it was gentle breathing, so she settled back to her musings.
They had been the most beautiful little angels she’d ever seen in her life; the first with his mother’s raven curls and his father’s amber eyes, and the second the image of his maternal grandfather with his dark brown hair and midnight blue eyes. Both of them showed their elven heritage plainly, with ears that came to delicate points at the top, but not quite long enough for a true elf. The midwife had handed the black haired boy to his father to hold while Morgaine finished her delivery, and so it was her second born, the little brunette, that she got to hold first. When he wrapped his tiny hand around her finger, she felt like it was her heart the baby had really taken in his hands.
They named the black haired boy “Sieg” and his younger twin “Nikolas.” Both Belial and Morgaine had been rather ill-prepared for the endless rounds of several-times-per-night wakeups, shrieking twin negative-feedback-loops, and inevitable projectile spit up. It was extremely fortunate for Morgaine’s sanity that elves valued children so highly the company had given Belial a three-month liberty from his duties to help her care for and bond with his children.
But despite the lost sleep and hair-tearingly frustrating noise, when one of her little babies dozed contentedly in her arms Morgaine’s insides melted like butter and she would have been happy to stay that way forever. It was obvious from the gentleness in his amber eyes that Belial felt exactly the same way.
A soft sound drew Morgaine’s attention, and she looked into the crib again- it seemed Sieg had the hiccups. He was still sound asleep though, so she left him alone. If he woke himself up and needed comforting, she was nearby.
It hadn’t taken long for Morgaine and Belial to notice something was wrong. While the older boy grew louder and stronger, plump as little babies generally were, little Nikki’s health began to flag. When he cried, his cries were very soft compared to his brother’s, and he seemed to very quickly lose his breath screaming. At first Belial suggested he was just sick with a cold of some sort, and would get over it. One night, however, when Nikki’s skin turned a dusky, terrifying shade of blue while he was crying, it became obvious something was badly, badly wrong.
“What do you mean his heart is incomplete?” Morgaine had demanded when they took the two month old to see a healer. “You’re a healer, you can fix that right?”
“It’s probably because of being a halfblood,” the elven man said somberly, his eyes full of sympathy. “If it was something like a hole in the heart, which we see sometimes, we could fix that but… his heart just never grew all the way at all.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Morgaine shouted. She would have said more, but Sieg had started to fuss in Belial’s arms and she turned her attention to soothing him. But she kept a watchful eye on Nikolas, lying in the healer’s arms, his breathing noticeably shallow.
“What do we do?” Belial asked softly, handing Sieg to his mother so that she could distract herself. The healer shook his head.
“There isn’t a lot we can. This is a problem in his blood, it’s… part of his normal body. I doubt even the healers in Solis could fix this. He… he might live, but he’ll always be very fragile. Don’t let him get over excited, or run around too much.”
"Is that really the best you can give us?" Morgaine spat. Belial put a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she leaned into his chest.
"I'm sorry miss," the healer said, sincerity plain in his voice. "But we can only do so much; magic isn't an all-powerful force. This is in the Lord Woo's hands I'm afraid."
Morgaine shunted that memory away, clenching her eyes closed against the sting of tears welling up in them. She reached into the crib, giving the eight-month-old Sieg a gentle stroke along his back. He sighed contentedly in his sleep, shifting slightly to a more comfortable position, and the faintest of softness came across Morgaine’s face.
Nikki’s poor health had meant that his more robust brother was often on the short end when it came to getting extra attention- not something Morgaine or Belial did intentionally or enjoyed, but an inevitability. Trying to keep an infant from over-exciting himself when you couldn’t reason with him and explain why he should stay calm was near impossible. The two of them had been forced to coddle the younger twin almost constantly to keep him stable. It was exhausting, and when Belial had inevitably been forced to return to his duties most of the burden fell to Morgaine.
Fortunately for both Morgaine and Sieg, Belial had been home in Nid’aigle that cold day in January when everything came crashing down. If he hadn’t, he human woman wasn’t sure what she might have done.
It was just a cold. An ordinary bug that was going around the city, not a big deal. Unless you happened to have an incomplete heart, and preexisting breathing problems. They’d taken Nikki to the healers when he started to go blue, but by the time they got there…
A strangled sob rose in Morgaine’s throat. Her hand halted in it’s stroking of Sieg’s back as she tried to get her emotions under control. Four months had passed since then. Four months since Sieg, born a twin, had become an only child. Four months since she’d realized she would never look into Nikki’s beautiful blue eyes again. Against her wishes, tears started to roll down the woman’s face, dripping onto the baby in the crib below.
Sieg twitched, flinching a little as the wetness hit his face. He opened his eyes, and lifted his head falteringly to look up at his mother.
“I’m sorry Siegy,” Morgaine whimpered, rubbing her face. “Did I wake you?”
He cooed softly, looking up at her with an expression that, were he a little older, she might have called concern. As young as he was, it was probably just fear because his mother was so upset. He pushed himself up a little higher, so his chest was lifted off the bottom of the cradle.
“...Mah!”
Morgaine blinked, her mouth falling open. “Wh… what?”
Sieg looked directly at her. “Mah-mah!”
“S… Sieg…”
Fresh tears started rolling down her face; was he really… he’d never spoken before, but it sounded so much like…
“Mah-mah!” he said again, and this time when he looked up at her it was with a wide, bright smile. In spite of herself, the locksmith’s mouth quirked a little, and she found herself smiling back.
“Yes, Sieg. Yes, I’m your mama,” she cooed, reaching into the crib to pull him up. As she sat the baby on her lap and held his warm body close, she knew somehow that everything would be alright again. Not now maybe but… with time. Candy“Graaaaama,” Sieg whined, “Wanna go inna house! It’s too hot!”
Sabine Braham sighed, a look of gentle patience on her face. “It will be hotter inside than out here, little one. Out here we can get the nice breeze.”
The two-year-old half-elf sulked. “Canny, Grama?”
“Maybe later,” the elven woman replied indulgently. “And we can get some for your Mama too, I bet she’ll need it.”
“Mama an’ the bebbie!” Sieg said, bouncing on the front porch step of his grandmother’s house. “Bebbie coming, bebbie coming!”
Before Sabine could reply, she heard the sound of hoofbeats, and looked up to see her son, Belial, riding up to them on his warhorse. He was smiling as wide as ever she’d seen him, and the elf woman grinned broadly in reply.
“So it’s been born?” she asked her son, and he nodded happily, dismounting from his destrier. He bent down to recieve his son, who’d lurched up at his arrival and was running towards him with excited squeals of “Papa, papa!”
“Yes- a little girl child, and praise be to Woo this time she seems to be in good health. Only time will tell for sure, but… the healer seems optimistic.”
“Then you should be as well,” Sabine replied. “I’ll go and get your father from the orchards, you take Sieg on ahead. I’m sure he’s excited to meet his new sibling.”
“I bet you are, aren’t you my Little Raven,” he said to the boy, tickling him on the side of the neck so that the child giggled.
“Mama an’ the bebbie!” he said, pushing his father’s hand away. “No tickle Papa, no tickle.”
“Alright then, you’re the boss,” Belial replied, swinging back up onto his horse’s back as Sabine turned towards the woods behind her home. He set the two year old down in the saddle in front of him, keeping a firm hand around Sieg so he wouldn’t fall. “So are you excited to meet your new baby sister?”
“Bebbie sitter?” Sieg repeated, glancing up at his father curiously. Belial nodded.
“That’s right, your baby sister. The baby is a girl, Sieg. Like Mama and Grandma.”
“Bebbie girl,” the half-elf parroted, bouncing a little in the saddle as he said it. “Cany, Papa? Cany for Mama, cany for bebbie?”
“The baby is too little for candy, but maybe we can get some for your Mama later,” Belial answered, hugging his son close to his chest. “Why don’t you meet your new sister, then we can talk about candy.”
“Cany for bebbie!” Sieg shrieked with enthusiasm, and Belial only shook his head indulgently.
Eventually they reached the small house next to the river that Belial, his human wife Morgaine, and their son Sieg all shared. And now a fourth addition had come into their little family- Belial hoped they could finish the additional bedroom they had started building just before finding out Morgaine was pregnant a second time.
It was her second pregnancy, but not their second child- Sieg had originally been born a twin, and for the first four months of his life he’d had a brother. Then complications of the child’s hybridism had killed him, leaving Morgaine and Belial bereft and Sieg an only child. Though neither of them regretted having children, both Belial and Morgaine agreed that this little girl would be the last. Pregnancy was hard on the human woman, who was very small and had a difficult time carrying a baby inside. And they didn’t want to have to go through the loss of another child.
Belial just hoped that their little girl was as strong and healthy as her now two year old brother.
He dismounted, carrying the increasingly excited Sieg in his arms as they entered the house. In the back bedroom was Morgaine, just as she’d been when he left her, with the exception of the fact that the baby seemed to be finished with the first meal he’d left them to when he went to get Sieg and had fallen asleep.
Morgaine looked up as they walked in, and a broad smile broke across her tired face. “Hey Siegy, you back from Grandma’s house?”
“Back!” he said happily, straining towards his mother. “Back, back, back, back, back!”
“Easy Sieg, don’t pull,” Belial chided, setting him down on the bed. He crawled across the sheets to his mother, eyes wide as he looked at the newborn in Morgaine’s arms.
“Bebbie?” he asked, looking up at Morgaine. She smiled warmly.
“Yes, that’s your new baby sister. Her name is Ophelia. Ooh-fee-lee-uh.”
“Ooo-pee-yuh?” Sieg repeated, though he didn’t quite seem able to produce all the sounds. Belial smiled.
“Try ‘Ophee’ Sieg. Can you say ‘Ophee’?”
The toddler squinted with concentration. “Ooophee. Oh-phee-phee. Oooh-phee-phee-phee-phee-pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” He bounced on the bed, his amber eyes alight with excitement. “Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Phee-phee-phee-pheeeee!”
“Sieg, Siegy, stop,” Morgaine said with a wince as Ophelia started to shift and grimace in her arms. “Not so loud, the baby’s sleeping!”
He stopped bouncing, looking down at his sister in surprise. “Bebbie seeping?”
“Yes sweety, she’s sleeping,” Morgaine confirmed, gently stroking Ophelia’s cheeks to quiet her again. Sieg smiled broadly.
“Ooooh, bebbie nuh-night. Sowwy Phee-phee,” he reached towards the little girl and ran his fingers across her cheeks as his mother was doing, forcing Belial to cover a smile. Morgaine was likewise amused, and a though seemed to occur to her.
“Sieg, would you like to help me hold her?” she offered, and the little boy’s face lit up.
"Bebbie! Wanna hold the bebbie!" he squealed, reaching his chubby fingers towards the infant dozing in Morgaine's arms. Belial scooped Sieg up under his armpits, and he and Morgaine managed to slide the child into Morgaine’s arms so that Ophelia’s head was resting against his right shoulder. He hugged his little arms around the infant, smiling hugely. “Holding bebbie Phee! I’m doin’ it, Mama!”
“Yes you are,” Morgaine agreed. “I bet you’re going to be the best big brother in the world, aren’t you Sieg? Are you going to be the best big brother?”
“Bes!” he said, nodding enthusiastically. “Bes, bes, bes!”
Looking up at Belial, he added, “Cany for bebbie, Papa?" No Nap!Working in the customer service industry is the ‘Pit, Morgaine decided waspishly.
It didn’t matter how many times she explained to people that her lockbox surprise was entirely random and there was no telling what they’d get out of it- people still came up to her to whine about how what they got wasn’t worth what they paid for. That’s the risk you took on a gambling game, and it’s why Morgaine had introduced the gambling game in the first place- not to mention the idiots got to keep the lockbox after they retrieved the contents, which was a nice bonus. And yet people would still complain.
“There was only a key in this box!” the young woman insisted angrily. “One that hasn’t even been ground! I want my money back!”
“That’s not how it works,” the locksmith retorted with exaggerated patience. “I clearly state in my rules for the lockbox game that there is no guarantee that you’ll get something equal the value of the money you spent. Seriously, I have to make a profit here, there are some winning boxes with high quality stuff in them, but most are not because if most were I’d go broke selling those high quality goods for a little over the cost of the lockbox.”
As she spoke Morgaine felt a slight shift against her back, and put up a hand absently to stroke the head of the baby girl who was nestled in a sling there. Ophelia quieted under Morgaine’s touch, and she felt the four month old settle back to sleep again. It was market day in Kolanth, the human village near the elven city of Nid’aigle, and though Morgaine no longer lived in Kolanth full time she still did business with the residents. She had a stall set up for her every market day by the widow of her late mentor, Madame Smithson, and from that stall she sold simple locks, her mystery lockboxes, and accepted custom commissions. Though Morgaine’s children often came with her to her shop in Nid’aigle, usually when she was in Kolanth she left them in the care of her husband, Belial. Unfortunately, today Belial was away on knightly business, which meant she had to man the stall and watch the children- a trying task to say the least.
“Mama!” Sieg called from his place on the ground beside her, and she looked down at him. He was playing with some wooden blocks, and he presented a rather haphazard stack of them with a flourish. “Made a castle!”
“That’s beautiful Sieg,” the locksmith replied with a tired smile.
“Hey, I’m not done with you!” The customer snapped, and Morgaine sighed.
“Listen, I’m sorry you are so dissatisfied but-”
“Castle, Mama!” Sieg chirped, tugging on Morgaine’s skirts. She gently ruffled his hair with one hand, but continued talking to the irritated woman.
“But the rules for the lockbox game are crystal clear. I make no promises as to the value of the lockbox contents. But if it’s really that big a deal to you, how about this; I’ll-”
“Maaamaaa, look, lookit the castle!”
“I see it, Siegy, but Mama’s busy right now,” Morgaine replied, glancing down at him with a gentle but stern tone in her voice. Returning her attention to the customer she went on, “I’ll grind the key to match any lock you want, free of charge. Will that help smooth this over?”
She could tell by the expression on the woman’s face that it wouldn’t, but before either of them could say more Sieg jumped a little in place, yanking on Morgaine’s skirts and whining, “Ma-a-maaa! Mama, castle!”
“Sieg, I saw the castle,” Morgaine said with exasperation. He worried her skirts some more, glaring up at his mother.
“Wanna play! No work, Mama, no work!”
“I have to work, or you won’t have any money for new toys and candy,” the locksmith pointed out wearily. “Now please sit down and play with your blocks while I talk to the nice lady.”
He made a soft noise of displeasure, stamping his feet a few times, but relented and sat down next to the blocks with a huff. Morgaine could hear him slamming the pieces of wood together with far more force than was necessary, but ignored him in favor of focusing on appeasing her customer.
Finally reaching a compromise with the woman and seeing her off, Morgaine glanced at the irate toddler. She was just in time to catch his face splitting in a wide yawn. Her mouth set on a grim line. “I think somebody needs a nap.”
Sieg’s head snapped up, his amber eyes glaring and his expression mulish. “No nap!”
“That’s not up to you kiddo,” Morgaine retorted.
“No nap!” Sieg insisted, kicking his feet to emphasize the point. Morgaine sighed; this was going to be splendid afternoon, she could already tell. It was August in Corvus, certainly not what Morgaine would have considered the ideal conditions for an outdoor nap, but the heat would only serve to make her son even more cranky the longer he didn’t sleep.
“Sieg, you’re tired,” she said soothingly. “I can tell you’re tired. Mama’s tired too.”
“Not tired!” he insisted, his face starting to go red from anger. “No nap!”
Before she could reply, Morgaine heard a soft sneeze from behind her, and felt Ophelia shift against her back. The baby girl grabbed the sash that Morgaine habitually wore over her hair, yanking it off so that it fell instead over Ophelia’s head.
“I was using that, you know,” Morgaine informed the infant with a glance over her shoulder. Sieg giggled.
“Phee want a scarf too,” he said.
“I suppose she does,” his mother agreed, reaching around to try and pry Ophelia’s fingers off of the sash. It was difficult without being able to see what she was doing, and the baby’s grip was surprisingly firm despite how tiny her fingers were. Eventually Morgaine gave up and just let her keep the scarf- she was being quiet otherwise, and by now the locksmith had learned to pick her battles. She had a more pressing worry to attend to- despite his best intentions Sieg was starting to slump over where he was sitting, his eyes glazing with fatigue.
“Lemme get your blanket,” she said to him, and he immediately jerked his head up again.
“No! No nap, Mama, I’m not tired!”
“I think you’re lying, Sieg,” she informed him as she stood up and started to reach into the small bag she’d brought with her for the thick woolen blanket that served him as a sleeping mat when he came with her to work. “I think you are tired.”
“No!” he shrieked, kicking over his own block castle in a fit of pique. He stood up, wrapping his arms around Morgaine’s legs and stamping his feet repeatedly. “Mama I don’t wanna sleep, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna!”
The locksmith ignored this tantrum, finally locating the blanket. She spread it out across the top of her stall, folding it over twice so that the surface was soft enough to be comfortable, and then turned her attention to Sieg- who had by this point left off trying to hold her still and was instead standing in one place, bawling loudly. The first few times he’d pulled this stunt in public Morgaine had panicked trying to hush him, thoroughly embarrassed, but fortunately there were enough experienced mothers in Kolanth to advise her on how to handle the inevitable temper tantrums. Now she folded her arms, watching him impassively as he shrieked.
“Sieg, I’m going to count to three and you’re going to stop this, or I’ll get my hairbrush. One-,”
He squeaked, clamping his mouth shut and sniffling. He knew what “mama’s hairbrush” meant. The hairbrush was what Morgaine applied to his behind when he misbehaved.
“Thank you,” she said coolly. She could hear Ophelia behind her making unhappy noises, and sighed. “Now look, you’ve upset your sister. Is that what a good big brother does?”
“No,” he said in a very small voice, hiccuping softly. “Phee’s hungry?”
“No, she’s a little baby and she doesn’t like loud noises,” Morgaine retorted. “And you scared her screaming like that.”
She shifted the sling around so that Ophelia was in front of her chest rather then behind her back. The infant was still gripping Morgaine’s sash, and there was a grimace on her tiny face as she fussed, flailing her arms and legs.The locksmith bounced her gently, cooing until the baby settled again. While she was distracted, however, Sieg had covertly sat down in front of his blocks and started stacking them again. His energy was obviously flagging, if the way he was swaying in place was any indication, but he still refused to go down. With an exasperated sigh, she gently maneuvered the sling so Ophelia was resting against her back, and planted her hands on her hips.
“Sieg, it’s nap time,” she said firmly, glaring at him. He looked back up at her pleadingly.
“No nap, Mama, I’m not tired!” he insisted. Before she could argue further, however, she heard a cough from the other side of the stall and turned to see that a customer was trying to get her attention. Momentarily distracted, and with Sieg at least being quiet with his blocks, she sat back down and started negotiating commission prices with the visitor. She pushed Sieg’s blanket to one side so it wasn’t in the way, figuring that she could resume that battle once her business was attended to.
Morgaine was surprised, however, when she felt a little arm reach across her leg as the customer was leaving. It was Sieg, trying to pull himself up in her lap.
“Up,” he said plaintively, and she quirked an eyebrow.
“How do we ask?”
“Up, please,,” Sieg amended, looking up at her and standing on his tiptoes, reaching skyward. There were heavy rings under the half-elf’s eyes, and he yawned hugely. Morgaine leaned down and gently scooped him up, setting him back down in her lap. He nestled in the crook of one of her arms, his forehead pressed against her shoulder.
“Finally giving up?” she asked with a gentle smile. He made no reply, instead burrowing his nose into her chest and hugging his knees to his shoulders. She gently stroked his back, where he like his father had a tender line of skin that was very sensitive to touch. He relaxed instinctively under the soothing repetitive motion, his weight settling against her as his muscles went slack.
“No nap,” he muttered softly, his eyelids drooping.
Morgaine didn’t reply. Instead, she began to hum the tune of the lullaby she and Belial had written together for their children. Sieg yawned again, shifting position so that he was lying sideways against her chest rather than face-first. His eyes slid closed, and her jerked them open again, lifting his head slightly, only for his neck to relax and his eyelids to slide right back down again a few seconds later. This time they stayed firmly closed.
“Nuhnap,” he breathed, the words almost indistinguishable. Morgaine kissed the top of his head.
“Nap,” she said firmly. And this time, there was no objection. Only the gentle breathing of a sleeping toddler curled up in her arms.
ImprovisingMorgaine looked up at him, puffing out her cheeks with annoyance. There was a foot and a half difference between her height and Belial’s, and while normally this wasn’t a big deal, it made certain things a touch awkward for the two of them to manage.
The elf was distracted watching eight month old Ophelia crawl around in the grass with her three year old brother, and didn’t even notice what his wife was up to until she had climbed halfway up the fence.
“Love, what are you doing?” he asked, tilting his head in confusion.
“You’re too tall,” she replied. “I’m clearing the distance.”
“For what exac-”
He was cut off abruptly as she answered his question by flinging her arms around his neck and pulling his face into hers. After a moment of tense surprise he relaxed into the kiss, putting his arms around her middle to stabilize her so she wouldn’t fall. When they pulled apart, he gave her a look that was half annoyed, half amused.
“You could have just said something, you know.”
She grinned. “I could have. But this way is more fun.”
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Post by Shinko on Aug 20, 2014 15:36:22 GMT -5
The Great Cookie PrincessThe human woman surveyed the elven man who was lying sprawled across the couch in their house's main room. Her face reflected exasperation, and she was glad their two children were in the bedroom and couldn't hear this conversation.
"Belial," Morgaine said sternly, "You're supposed to be resting."
The elf smiled up at her, adopting a wide-eyed expression and pitching his voice childishly high. "But I'm not tired, Mama!"
"Ha, ha, very funny," the woman retorted, rolling her eyes. "Seriously though, just because the healers fixed you doesn't mean you're in any shape to be chasing around a six year old and a four year old all day."
"You worry too much," he said, waving a hand. "I have been doing this job for a long time, I know what I am and am not capable of."
The locksmith folded her arms. "Says the man who decided to ride an hour to see me with an inch deep gash across the inside of his leg."
A look that mixed amusement and annoyance flashed across Belial's face. "You're never going to let me hear the last of that, are you? Morgaine seriously, you deserve a break. If I'm going to be home all day anyway I might as well supervise the children so you can get some work done without them underfoot. I imagine you don't usually run the kiln with them around, for example."
She looked away. "Belial you got shot in the lung. You could have died!"
"And yet I did not," he pointed out gently, pulling his shirt aside to show her the unblemished skin on his chest, without even a scar to show for the episode. "Yes, I am to be resting, but I am also not supposed to by lying flat too much. Sitting in the floor with Sieg and Ophee gives me a reason to sit up for a while despite being ti-"
He broke off, but Morgaine pounced on the half-uttered sentence like a cat after a mouse. "So you are tired."
He rubbed his face with a sigh. "Alright, yes, I'm tired. Almost dying will do that, regardless of the repairs made to the flesh and the potions to replenish lost blood. But there may yet be fluid in my lungs that needs to drain, and if I don't force myself to get up and move around it will make me very ill. That has happened to knights before, I've seen it."
With a pleading smile he added, "And I should very much like the chance to have the little ones to myself for a while. Se il vous plaît , mon bien-aimé?"
Morgaine's jaw tightened, but she couldn't really argue with him. He spent so much time off on missions, most of the time when he was home so was she, and they shared the children. His chances to spend quality time with them alone were few and far between, something that the woman knew upset him.
"...Alright," she said finally, and had to bite back a smile as he brightened. "But don't let them climb all over you, and please don't strain yourself. You don't want to your chivalry to backfire and give me three people to take care of."
"Oui , oui, I will be careful Dearheart," he said with a patient smile. "Go on, you'll be late opening the shop if you don't hurry."
She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek, a gesture he returned. With her head still close to his she murmured, "You're brute for scaring me like that you know. Seeing your steel plate armor with a huge hole in it…"
"That is what crossbows are designed for, love," he told her gently, nuzzling her ear. "To punch through armor at relatively close range. I will need to have my cuirass repaired, but I survived. Our lives will go on, and we still have four mouths in this family in need of feeding. Go to work."
With a defeated sigh, she stood up and walked towards the door. Casting one last uncertain glance in Belial's direction, she finally left.
As she closed the door behind her, Belial took a moment to lean his head back against the side of the chair and sigh. He loved Morgaine dearly but she could be so overprotective at times. It wasn’t even just her knight husband she extended this overbearing affection to either. She hovered over the children almost constantly and reigned them in as soon as it looked like they were about to put a single toe out of line- all well and good, but it meant that they weren’t able to learn from experience why doing certain things was a bad idea. “Because Mama says no” would only hold for so long as they got older and more independant.
But for the time being they were still small and cute, and the manners that growing up in elven society had hammered into them kept them mostly well behaved. Injury or not, Belial intended to enjoy his time with his children as much as he could; he couldn’t honestly think of a time in his life when he’d been happier than he was now as a husband and a father.
The elf’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a high voice from the children’s bedroom; Sieg, his six year old son. It sounded like Sieg was singing, as he often was these days. He’d discovered his talent about four months prior, and when he’d learned that people liked to hear his singing he became very enamoured with practicing it all the time. Belial and Morgaine weren’t sure if it was just a phase he’d grow out of or not, but if he was still doing it within the next few months Belial was seriously considering enrolling him in music lessons so that he could have an outlet for his new hobby that would help him improve and excel.
The singing was abruptly cut off, however, and replace by two high, annoyed voices. Belial sighed, pushing himself upright. Sieg might have liked singing, but Ophelia was getting heartily impatient with being subjected to his practicing all the time.
“Kids,” he said, walking into their room. “Why do I hear yelling in here?”
“Sieg won’t stop singing!” Ophelia yelped angrily, pointing an accusatory finger at her brother. The four year old had to withdraw the pointing hand quickly, however as Sieg leaned towards her with his tongue sticking out to lick her finger. “Eeeww, Papa!”
“Sieg, don’t harass your sister, you know that just makes her more angry,” Belial said sternly, leaning against the doorframe. His legs were already a little sore and shaky just from standing for a minute- he’d need to sit down soon. Unfortunately, the way Sieg glowered at his sister indicated that he wasn’t going to be especially cooperative.
“She’s being a butthead,” he said irritably. “I just wanna sing.”
“You sing all the time!” Ophelia objected, stamping her feet. “I want to play princesses and castles!”
“Ophee, let Sieg sing if he wants to sing,” Belial said gently. “If you want to play castles, how about you play with Papa?”
The little girl looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Really?”
Belial winked. “Really.”
“But, but,” Sieg objected, looking crestfallen, “It’s no fun to sing if nobody listens!”
Improvising quickly, the elf said, “Well Sieg, if you want to sing, you can be Princess Ophee’s minstrel.”
“What’s a minstrel?” Sieg asked suspiciously. Belial couldn’t help but chuckle at the dubious expression on his son’s face.
“A minstrel is someone whose job it is to sing. They travel around from place to place and sing at inns and taverns. Sometimes, if they’re very good at what they do, a minstrel gets to sing for a noble- or even a princess!” Belial winked at Ophelia. “But only very good minstrels can sing for a princess, and you can’t sing just any old song. You have to sing what the princess wants to hear, or you don’t get paid.”
The young half-elf girl brightened, bouncing a little at this prospect. Getting to boss her big brother around and tell him what to sing? What could possibly be more fun?
For his part, Sieg’s eyes had grown huge and round, and his mouth was hanging open. “You mean people get paid to sing? As a job? I didn’t know that!”
The room was starting to spin a little around Belial’s head, and he quickly walked further into the children’s room and sat down on the edge of Sieg’s bed. As he waited for the dizziness to clear, he smiled down at his son. “Well of course people get paid to sing; it’s not something a lot of people can do well, so the people who have the talent are very special. People who can’t sing will pay a lot to hear music from people who can.”
“I don’t have any money to pay him,” Ophelia put in, looking a little worried. “I gotta have runestones but I don’t have ‘em.”
“Well how about I help with that; I can be the royal treasurer,” Belial said. “But if we’re going to play castles you can’t look like that; you have to dress like a princess and a minstrel. You two get dressed for the parts and I’ll be right back.”
The children nodded enthusiastically, and went to the small trunk they had full of various dress-up clothes. Bracing himself, Belial stood and walked out of the room. His head pounded a little, but he managed to get back out into the main room and find what he was looking for; the jar they used for cookies. The type of cookies in it varied by season; right now most of them were almond and pecan cookies, though there were a few plain sugar cookies mixed in. For a six year old they would do nicely as “payment.”
When Belial reentered the room, he found that the children had been busy. Ophelia was putting a little tiara of grapevines around her head, and had put a lace cape over her shoulders to affect the appearance of being a princess. Sieg, however had dumped a good bit of the dress up clothing on the floor and still didn’t seem to have chose a costume for himself.
“I don’t know how minstrels should look,” he complained dejectedly, and with a grin Belial sat down on the floor beside his son, putting the cookie jar in his lap. Sieg and Ophelia were both instantly distracted by the jar, brightening visibly.
“Cookies?” Ophelia said hopefully, and Belial chuckled.
“The cookies will be our money. If you like the song the minstrel sings, he gets a cookie. If you don’t, he has to try again. And if you sing along with his song, you get a cookie, so it’s fair.” Turning to Sieg he went on, “You can wear whatever you want, Little Raven, this is your performance. Just remember to look nice for the princess!”
“Well maybe Phee should pick my costume then,” he put in, poking her in the shoulder. She bounced a little, and dug through the pile of cloth on the floor. She gave her brother a red hat with a somewhat squashed feather in it, a half cloak in a slightly different shade of red, and a scarf in yet a fourth shade of red that she tied around his waist like a belt.
“There, now you look handsome for your show!” she chirped. “Daddy you need a costume too!”
“So I do,” Belial admitted with a smile. “So what shall I wear?”
Ophelia ended up fitting her father with a high-colored cloak, which being designed for children fit him more like a half cloak. She also tied a sash around his forehead.
“Now we’re ready!” Ophelia declared, clambering up onto her bed while Belial remained sitting on the floor. She pointed to Sieg and shouted, “Sing! Sing a song about rabbits!”
Sieg blinked, looking a little lost. “But I don’t know any songs about rabbits!”
“The princess wants a song about rabbits, so you need to sing her one, that’s how minstrels work,” Belial teased gently. “If you don’t know a song, try making one up.”
“Ummmm,” the little boy hesitated, looking down thoughtfully. Then he hesitantly said, “Little bunny hop hop, little bunny hop, Can you jump in the tree to the tippy top, Little bunny hop hop, little bunny hop.”
He looked at Ophelia hopefully, and she giggled. “That was a short song. But okay, you can have a cookie.”
The boy brightened, and he eagerly scuttled over to his father and accepted a treat from him. They repeated the game several more times, Ophelia eventually asking for actual songs instead of topics because she couldn’t sing along and get cookies herself if she didn’t know what to sing.
Halfway into the “show” Sieg decided he was bored of Ophelia just listening, and grabbed her off the bed. Despite her initial protests he managed to get the four-year-old “princess” to dance with him while he sang, and before long the both of them where laying on the floor giggling at each other while Belial put the lid on the cookie jar.
“I think that’s quite enough sugar for one day,” he remarked with amusement. “The treasurer is cutting you both off.”
“But I’m the princess!” Ophelia insisted, sitting up. “You have to do what I tell you!”
“No, I have to do what the queen tells me,” Belial replied. “You’re not a queen just yet, young miss.”
“Awwww,” The little girl moaned, pouting. “That’s not fair. You’re a mean treasurer.”
Sieg grinned, sitting up himself. “That was still fun though. I wanna be a minstrel for real when I get big! Then I can sing all over the world, and buy cookies and bring them home for us.”
Belial smiled indulgently at his son. “We’ll see. It takes a lot of work to be a minstrel. You don’t just sing, you have to play an instrument too. And you have to take special classes to learn how to sing better.”
“Classes to sing?” Sieg repeated, surprised. “But I thought singing was just… you do it. I already know how.”
“But the classes will help you sing even better,” Belial explained with a wink. Anything else he might have said was cut off, however, when Ophelia jumped towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“COOKIE REBELLION!” she shouted triumphantly , shoving as hard as her four-year-old body was capable of and worrying her arms into his clothes. Sieg laughed, jumping to his feet and charging after her. With two children pushing against his chest in his already weakened state, Belial laughingly opted to cave to the inevitable and allowed them to shove him backwards so that he was lying on the floor. Sieg and Ophelia, startled by this inexplicable surrender from their normally formidable father, yelped in surprise and went down with him, still hanging off of his neck and shoulders on either side.
“You may take me, but you will never have my cookies!” Belial declared, panting somewhat despite the fact that he’d spent only a few seconds actively trying to tussle with them. Oblivious to her father’s physical state, Ophelia laughed.
“You’re silly, Papa.”
“I am silly,” he agreed. “But that’s okay, being silly means I’m okay with doing this!”
Before either of the children had time to register that remark, much less figure out what he meant by it, Belial reached up to their necks and began tickling them mercilessly. Sieg and Ophelia flinched away, high pitched shrieks of mirth filling the house as they squirmed and wriggled to escape their father’s fingers. Belial sat up, not giving them the chance to break fully free before he hooked his arms around their shoulders and yanked them towards him in an enthusiastic bear hug.
“Should have flown away while you could, Little Ravens, now I have you and I’m never going to let you go!”
The children thrashed as they tried to break free, laughing and beaming up at their father. In spite of the fact that the activity was starting to make his head pound, Belial grinned right back at them.
* * * * *
“I’m home,” Morgaine called, shutting the door behind her as she walked into the house. To her surprise, it was dark inside. Normally it Belial was in town when she got home from work around sunset, he’d already have lit some candles in the house to see by.
“Belial?” she called only to receive a loud “Shhhh!” as a black haired, amber eyed child poked his head out of the bedroom.
“Sieg?” she said, only to be shushed again. In a lower voice she went on, “What’s going on, why do we need to be quiet.”
“‘Cause it’s nap time, duh,” Sieg retorted. Morgaine blinked, then realization hit her. Sieg had stopped needing naps during the day at around three, but Ophelia was still being weaned off of hers. She must have fallen asleep- though the woman really wished Belial had put her down before now, napping this late meant she was going to be impossible to get to down later when it was time to sleep for the night.
“Where’s your Papa?” she asked. “Why is it so dark in here?”
Sieg beckoned for Morgaine to follow him and vanished back into the bedroom. Stopping long enough to light a candle on the table, she picked it up and walked into Sieg and Ophelia’s room. To her surprise, Ophelia’s bed was empty. Instead, she saw the blonde, well muscled figure of her husband sitting cross-legged on the floor, slumped backwards against the wall and eyes closed; he didn’t stir even a little when she walked into the room, so deeply was he asleep. In the cradle of his arms, the child sized cape he was wearing wrapped around her shoulders like a blanket, was Ophelia, still in her princess costume. Morgaine sighed, shaking her head.
“How long have they been like this?” she asked Sieg.
“I ‘unno, not very,” he said. “Papa was getting tired ‘cause of his hurt so he told us to play quiet for a while. But Phee didn’t want to play, she wanted to sit with Papa for a while. Papa said she could sit as long as she was quiet, so he rubbed her back and then they both went to sleep. So I’ve been playing with blocks.”
Morgaine sighed, covering her face. “I told him he was too weak for this, he never listens.” Turning to Sieg she said, “Well did you at least have fun with Papa today?”
“Yes!” Sieg replied, nodding his head enthusiastically. “It was fun! I got to be a minstrel and sing for Phee and she paid me with cookies! Mama I wanna be a minstrel, I wanna be one for real!”
Sieg’s voice got louder as he was recounting all of this, and Ophelia squirmed a little in her father’s grasp at the noise. Without waking once, Belial started running his fingers down Ophelia’s spine until she quieted, murmuring unintelligible reassurances. Morgaine shook her head, a patient smile quirking at the corners of her mouth.
“Come on Siegy,” she said, gently steering him out of the room. “If they need to sleep we’ll let them sleep. How about you and I get started on dinner?” Summer StormsThunder boomed in the sky, making the very air hum and jolting the six year old half-elf named Sieg out of his sleep. Rain was pummeling on the windows so hard that it was almost impossible to see through them, and Sieg could hear the wind howling. It was a really bad storm- it rained a lot in Corvus, and the rain usually didn't wake up at night.
He sat up, rubbing his face, and looked to see that he wasn't the only one awake- his four year old sister, Ophelia, was also sitting up in bed. Her eyes were round, and he could tell by the look on her face she was afraid.
"Phee, you okay?" he asked her in a hushed voice. She looked over to him, shaking her head, but before either of them could say anything more-
CRASH!
Sieg jumped in surprise- that thunder had been very loud and very close by. Ophelia screeched, jumping out of her bed and bolting towards her brother.
"Sieeeeeeeeeeeeg!"
She jumped into the bed, throwing her arms around her startled brother's neck and hugging him so tightly she almost shoved him over. He quickly reoriented himself, putting his arms around her shoulders.
"It's okay Phee, it's just a storm, it can't get you. Thunder's just noise, that's what Mama says. We're safe in the house, you don't gotta be a-scared."
She didn't reply, but hugged her brother even tighter and sobbed into his chest. There was a soft click, and Sieg looked up to see is father poke his head in the room.
"Sieg, Ophelia, are you two alright in here?"
The little boy nodded. "We're okay Papa, Phee just got scared by the storm."
"I see," the elf smiled when he caught sight of Ophelia clinging to her brother. "But it looks like you have things under control here, hm?"
He grinned, showing several gaps where his baby teeth had started falling out. Then he hugged his little sister. "You don't gotta be scared, it's just a noise Phee."
She sniffled, and another explosion of thunder made her squeak and tighten her grip again. He patted her head like he'd seen his parents do, and looked up at Belial. "It's okay Papa, I can do it. I'll keep her safe from the storm."
"I'm sure you will," Belial replied. "I'll be in the other room if you two need anything though, alright?"
Sieg nodded and his father retreated back out of the room. The little boy turned his attention back to his frightened sister. Softly, in a high clear voice, he crooned her a song.
"Oh Mr. Sun, sun, Mr. golden Sun,
Please shine down on me.
Oh Mr. Sun, sun, Mr. golden Sun,
Hiding behind a tree.
These little children are asking you
To please come out so
We can play with you.
Oh Mr. Sun, sun, Mr. golden Sun,
Please shine down on me!"
He grinned giving her a gentle shake. "C'mon, you can sing it too can't you? It's really simple, I bet you can remember the words."
On his third repetition of the song, in spite of the rain still howling outside, Ophelia sang along. Old GrievancesMorgaine didn’t return to her birth village of Cypress Springs very often anymore. Now that she had seen a bit of the outside world, the swampy hamlet always felt almost claustrophobic in its small size. But her father Bryce was still there, and she would have missed him terribly if she never got to see him- and it did her son Sieg and her daughter Ophelia good to meet the human half of their family, as much time as they spent with the elven.
Belial had not come with them on this trip. His squad was on call and couldn’t wander too far from Nid’aigle. It was just Morgaine, the children, and their grandfather. And that wasn’t so bad really. It wasn’t as if Morgaine felt the need to be attached to her husband’s hip at all times after all, and it was nice to have the little ones to herself every now and again.
Today Bryce had taken his grandson out fishing in the swamp- something he admitted he’d always wanted to do with a son, had he had one. Sieg was thrilled with the idea, though Morgaine secretly suspected that once he’d been out there for a few hours he would likely become very bored- fishing wasn’t the most exciting of pastimes and Sieg was a very active, inquisitive child.
In the meantime, she and Ophelia had decided to do some shopping for sides and seasoning to go with the night’s inevitable fish dinner. Before Morgaine had become a merchant she and Bryce never would have been able to afford anything but the fish, but she had a little more money to spend on luxuries these days.
“Ophee, I’m going to have a look at some of these spices,” she said to the young half-elf. “Why don’t you go down the street and pick out some sweets from the baker for you and your brother for desert? I can pay for them when I’m done here.”
Ophelia bounced up and down, nodding enthusiastically. “Yes, Mama!” she said, turning and bolting down the dirt path towards the bakery.
With an indulgent smile, Morgaine turned her attention back to the spice seller’s stall. Sage and rosemary, that was a given. Maybe some parsley? Yes, parsley was good. She was just getting into some enthusiastic haggling over the price of an ounce of thyme when she felt a tug on her skirts. Looking down, she saw that Ophelia had come back- so soon? The locksmith had been expecting to finish up with the spice merchant and still find her daughter deliberating over cakes…
But she realized almost immediately that something was wrong. Ophelia wasn’t just tugging Morgaine’s skirts, she was leaning into them so that her face vanished into the fabric. Putting some gems on the counter for the spice merchant without continuing her haggling, Morgaine scooped the bags of spice into her shopping bag and knelt down beside her daughter.
“Ophee? Sweetie, what’s wrong?” The girl didn’t answer, and Morgaine gently picked the half-elf up and balanced her on one hip. “What happened Ophelia, you need to tell Mommy. Did you fall?”
The little girl still didn’t answer, instead hugging her arms around her mother’s chest. The locksmith carried her away from the noisy merchant stalls to a small alcove under some trees, stroking the child’s hair and murmuring reassurances.
“Mama,” Ophelia whimpered finally, “What’s a ‘mongrel’?”
Morgaine’s shoulders hitched up, and her grip on the child tightened possessively. “Where did you hear that word?”
“There was a priest of the Woo at the bakery,” she explained. “He saw me and asked if I was ‘Morgaine’s child.’ I told him my mama’s name was Morgaine, that was right, and then… and then… I don’t understand Mama, he was being really mean. He was yelling at me, but I wasn’t being bad, honest! I didn’t know a lot of the words he used, but he kept saying that one over and over again. Then the baker told me to go away and find you, and he said he would talk to the priest. But I don’t understand! What does mongrel mean, Mama? Tell me!”
Morgaine sighed, sitting down on the roots of one of the trees and shifting Ophelia into her lap. The priest- of course. Morgaine had a long history in this village of causing mischief with harmless but annoying pranks in her early teenage years, and the stuck-up, conservative village priest had been one of her favorite targets. It seemed that he was as judgmental as ever. And holding a grudge to boot.
Addressing the child, Morgaine said, “’Mongrel’ is a very mean word for someone who is two things at once, Phee. Like how you’re both an elf, and a human. Some people are just cruel, and they think being two things at once makes you bad.”
Ophelia looked up at her mother, her little hands clenching at the fabric of Morgaine’s shirt. “Does it?”
“No, and don’t you ever believe otherwise,” the locksmith assured her daughter. “You should be happy about your heritage; the elves are a proud, cultured old race and humans are a clever, learning young one. You get to be the best of both.”
The child sniffled. “The priest said I was an abo… abomy…”
“Abomination?” Morgaine guessed, anger prickling at her. The child nodded.
“Yeah, that. What does it mean?”
The locksmith scowled. “It’s just another mean word, Ophelia- you don’t need to pay it any mind.”
“But, but if the priest says I’m bad, doesn’t that mean the Lord Woo thinks I’m bad?” The girl asked, sounding a little panicked now. “Does the Lord Woo not like mongrels? Mama, what if-”
“Hush,” Morgaine interrupted sternly, putting a finger over the child’s lips to silence her. “Don’t talk of such silliness. You are a fantastic little girl and I’m sure the Lord Woo knows it. But here’s an idea- what if Mama goes and talks to the priest? I’ll tell him what he said was mean, and make sure he knows he shouldn’t say such things to people.”
Ophelia sniffled, and then nodded, hugging her mother around the neck. “Okay.”
“Do you know if he was still at the bakery when you left?” Morgaine asked. When the child nodded, her mother smiled. “Then that’s where we’ll go; with any luck he’s still arguing with the baker about those mean things he said to you, and I can catch him before he leaves.”
Standing up, keeping Ophelia balanced on one hip, the locksmith walked back into the market towards the building that housed the bakery. She was in luck- as she pushed open the door, the priest as just walking towards it as if to leave. He jerked back with surprise when she walked in, the crimson hue of his face and the cowed look of the baker indicating that that the old man had just delivered a scathing lecture.
“Father Drayden,” Morgaine said coolly, putting both arms protectively around her daughter as she stepped forwards. The priest took an instinctive step back to let her in, which was a mistake- now Morgaine could let the door swing shut behind her, boxing him in. She smiled a calm, polite smile that she had learned among the elves. “I would say this is a pleasant surprise, but I think we both know that would be a lie, and I have no wish to lie to a man of the Woo.”
The priest’s hands clenched into fists. “Morgaine- I see you are as disrespectful as ever.”
“What disrespect do I give?” she asked reasonably. “I’m not the one who starts conversations with children I don’t know by calling them mongrels and abominations.”
There was a steeliness in her voice as she added, “I would be within my rights to address you with a good deal less decorum then I’ve done, considering what you said to my child. But unlike you, I have spent the last ten years growing in maturity and open-mindedness. I’m only here to ask that you apologize to Ophelia for upsetting her.”
Drayden folded his arms. “I only spoke the truth- our holy lord put men and elves on this earth as two separate beings, intending for them to remain individual and distinct from one another. For you to have married an elf is enough of a sacrilege, but to violate nature itself by bearing his half breed children? I pity them- from their very births their souls were a sin against the natural order our feathered lord has set for us.”
“Is that right?” Morgaine asked, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Funny thing, I don’t remember that being mentioned anywhere in the holy scripture. But you certainly know the Word of the Woo better than I do, Father- where are you quoting from, exactly?”
“There is the letter of the Lord’s law, and there is the spirit,” Drayden retorted. “As one of His hands, I follow both.”
“Wow, that didn’t make any sense,” the locksmith said. “Funny thing, that sounded less like an answer and more like an evasion. You know what I think? I think you’re not following the letter or the spirit of the Woo’s laws. You’re just being a crotchety, conservative old man taking advantage of your position to project your own morals and beliefs onto other people.”
The priest’s face was turning an ugly shade of red again. “So you show your true colors after all- you are every bit the disrespectful, spoiled child you were when you were sixteen.”
Morgaine smiled serenely. “Only around people who are too stupid to take the hint when I try to tell them things politely.”
His nostrils flared, and there was a dangerous edge in the old man’s voice when he spoke again. “You have some nerve.”
“You already knew that,” she pointed out. “It’s why you went for my daughter instead of me.”
“Speaking of your… child, I notice you brought her along with you for this conversation,” he said. “Teaching her to be as disrespectful and morally bankrupt as her mother?”
“On the contrary, I’ve giving her a valuable lesson in standing up for one’s family and oneself. The elves have trained her to be polite in all things, no matter what. I’m not an elf, so I have a very different lesson to teach her today; politeness is wasted on shallow-minded idiots. The only way to get your point across with them is to do so by establishing that you are not cowed by them, no matter how much they may insult you, shriek at you, or call the curses of the ‘Pit down upon your soul.”
Morgaine’s arms tightened protectively around Ophelia again, and the little girl hugged her mother’s neck. “You speak of disrespect, and yet you are such a pathetic, petty coward that you would verbally attack a small child to inflate your own ego. But this child is mine, and I will not allow anyone to hurt or frighten her as long as there is breath in my body. And by letting her watch me expose you for what you really are, I will make sure she knows it.”
“I don’t have to stand here and be insulted!” Drayden spat, his temper visibly snapping.
“No, you don’t,” Morgaine agreed. “Scurry back to your chapel with your tail between your legs, then, Father. My point has just been made for me.”
The old man gaped at her, pure outrage reflected in every line of his body. Morgaine set Ophelia down and walked directly up to Drayden so that she was mere inches away from him.
“You don’t like me- that’s perfectly fair. Insult me all you like, and I won’t voice a word of complaint. You know why? Because I’m a mature adult and I know full well to take everything a blowhard like you says with a grain of salt.”
Her eyes narrowed, and despite how much shorter she was than the priest he actually backed up a step at the expression on her face. “But you will keep that forked tongue of yours to yourself around my children. I don’t care what grievances you have with me or with my choice of a husband, when Ophelia or Sieg are around you will be civil. If you aren’t, I will make your life miserable the entire time we’re here visiting, every time we visit. And you of all people know that I can, Father Drayden. Don’t think that just because I’ve matured out of those old pranks that I’ve lost my edge.”
The priest clenched his fists. “The Lord Woo watches your actions, Morgaine Folet. When judgment comes He will weigh your heart and find it wanting.”
“If He finds my heart wanting, I certainly wouldn’t want to be you,” she retorted cooly. “And that’s Morgaine Braham to you. Go away, Father Drayden, and take your bile with you.”
Drayden glared at Morgaine for a moment longer, but finally he seemed to decide he’d pushed his luck enough. With one last, poisonous look, the priest stalked away. The baker, who’d watched this entire exchange without comment, coughed in a way that might have been covering a laugh.
“Motherhood seems to have put some fire in you, Morgaine,” he remarked. “More than when you were just a spirited young lass. If I were one of your children, I think I’d feel like the safest person in the world.”
“Flatterer,” the locksmith said with a grin, waggling her fingers at him.
Ophelia tugged at her mother’s skirts. “Mama?”
Morgaine glanced down. “Yes, sweetie?”
“I want to be as cool as you when I grow up!”
Morgaine laughed, scooping her daughter up and pulling her into a hug. “I love you, munchkin.”
The half-elf hugged Morgaine right back “I love you too, Mama. Someone to CuddleIt was a chilly day in mid December, and for once Morgaine and Belial were alone together on the dock behind their home. That didn’t happen very often anymore; usually at least one of their children was somewhere in the house, if not in the room with them demanding attention. Morgaine loved her children dearly, but even she had to admit that sometimes she liked having the man she’d married and pledged to spend her life with to herself.
And their anniversary was the perfect excuse to have him all to herself.
Sieg and Ophelia would be spending the day (and the night) with Belial’s parents, Harald and Sabine. They lived deeper in the forest away from the river, which put plenty of distance between the children and their parents for the day. Morgaine and Belial meant to take every advantage of it.
“Strange isn’t it?” Morgaine remarked softly in Kythian. “To think it’s been nine years since we were married. Seems forever ago, but also only yesterday.”
“Time is a strange and fickle thing,” Belial agreed, using the same language- though around the children he spoke Elvish, to familiarize them with the language, when he and Morgaine were alone they spoke the human language to each other. Hugging his wife close he added, “But I have not regretted a single second of these nine years. My life was sad and hollow, then you came into it and gave me love, and our children, and I have never in all my centuries been happier.”
“You never change,” Morgaine teased. “Still just as corny as ever. You’re lucky it’s too cold for me to push you in the river.”
“A circumstance I was counting on, I assure you,” Belial replied with an impish grin. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “But that is neither here nor there- this is our day; how should you like to spend it?”
“You say that as if you think I want to go somewhere,” she retorted with a smirk. “You know that’s not how I roll, Belial.”
He chuckled, scooping her up in his arms princess style so that she squeaked in surprise. “Of course, I know you and I know that you are the sort who would prefer to spend all day in quiet solitude enjoying each other’s company. It is still polite to ask.”
Morgaine chuckled, leaning her head into his chest. “No one ever said we had to be quiet. Maybe I’m not a teenager anymore but I have a little youthful energy left in me, I like to think. And don’t even think it’s going to be you spoiling me all day, Sir Braham, because I have plans for you as well.”
He nuzzled her face with his as they were arriving at the door to the house. “I wouldn’t dream of denying you, love. You keep finding new ways to make a hedonist of me, and I rather enjoy it.”
“Good,” she said as he set her down and opened the door. “Now off with the shirt and lay on your stomach on the floor, we’re gonna get this party started right.”
With a glimmer in his amber eyes, Belial obeyed. Morgaine knelt down beside him as he sprawled across the floor, pillowing his chin on his crossed arms. Starting in the small of his back, Morgaine gently pressed her index and middle fingers against his spine and traced that line slowly up to the base of his neck. As she did so, involuntary shivers ran up his back, rippling from where her fingers touched his skin. His body slowly went limp, and his eyes glazed.
“You almost make it not fun to do the rest of it,” she remarked teasingly. Now instead of stroking his spine directly, she started to rub up and down his back to warm up the muscles. He chortled, not bothering to turn his head towards her as he spoke.
“Believe me, I would be most disappointed if you stopped there. The sensation is a heady one but not nearly as nice as when you improvise such as you are now. You’ve gotten quite good at this for having no formal training in such things.”
Morgaine grinned. “Well it helps to have such a willing test subject. You let me have all sorts of fun experimenting with your back.”
“A mutually beneficial exchange, I should think. It only makes sense that I be the subject of your practice sessions, since I am the one to benefit from them. Once you discover what works best, you already know if I enjoy it or not.”
He let his eye slide shut the rest of the way, humming tunelessly as the locksmith massaged his back. After half an hour or so of this, he called a halt to the proceedings to give her arms a rest and pulled his shirt back on.
“So I suppose it is my turn, hm?” he said, his smile broad. The locksmith laughed.
“I suppose it is. What mischief have you got up your sleeve?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead he pulled the locksmith into a close embrace, so that the two of them were tangled in each other’s arms as they sat on the floor together.
“Tell me, Dearheart,” he said finally. “Our chicks are no longer nestlings- they can speak and run and play on their own. Do you ever think much on this?”
Morgaine was surprised when Belial brought up the children. That was an odd topic for a day when they’d specifically arranged for the kids to be elsewhere.
“I… I admit, I am sad about it, a little,” Morgaine said softly. “It’s wonderful to watch them grow and blossom into their own, and they’re still young yet, but I do miss when they were at their littlest. Sieg is already too big to sit in my lap properly, and Ophelia’s getting there fast.” She chuckled. “Of all the reasons to dislike being as small as I am, I never expected this to be the one that gets me.”
Belial laughed, pulling his wife just slightly so that she was sitting on his lap. “I for one think you are the perfect size. There are so many fun and interesting ways to take advantage of and compensate for your shortness.”
The locksmith cackled, grinning at him deviously. “Is that a fact?”
Instead of answering verbally, Belial kissed her. They held together like that for a full minute before he pulled away and ruffled her hair. “It is a fact. Just one that is hard to exemplify when we are both sitting on the floor and more or less on-level. But come now, you distract me. I was working towards something.”
Morgaine grinned unapologetically. “Distracting you is what I do best.”
“I am not going to argue with that statement,” the knight replied. “But in this instance you are distracting me to your own detriment since it is for you that I am striving to get this script across.”
“Have I mentioned it’s adorable you even have a script planned out?” the locksmith said with a smirk. “You’re such a romantic.”
“And you are spoiling my fun,” he retorted, smirking right back as he playfully shoved her. “Let me up for a moment, I have to go and get something.”
Amused, but compliant, Morgaine shifted so that she was again sitting by herself on the floor. Belial stood and walked towards their bedroom, which Morgaine realized now had the door closed- that was a little unusual. He emerging a moment later with a bundled up blue blanket in his arms, and sat back down beside her.
“Belial… why is that blanket wriggling?” Morgaine asked, staring at it with an eyebrow raised.
“Because getting the contents to cooperate and be still would be too much to ask,” he replied with a laugh. “But here; something that will never be too big to sit in Mama’s lap, that will be small and cute forever.”
He set the blanket in Morgaine’s lap, and pulled the top layer of it back. Morgaine looked down and gave a squeal of delight- nestled in the folds where two fluffy kittens.
“They’re adorable,” Morgaine cooed, picking up one of them- a little grey tabby. He blinked owlishly up at her from yellow-green eyes and gave a soft “Mew?” that only made her giggle like a small girl. She set him down and stroked the other kitten, a blue-eyed calico, who responded by clamping on to the locksmith’s hand with her teeth and wrapping her paws around it.
“Fiesty, that one,” Belial remarked with amusement. “They’re not siblings, they’re from different parents and the grey is about a week older. But still, I thought you might like them. They’ve no names yet, so you can decide what to call them.”
“I’ll think about it,” Morgaine said, cuddling both kittens close to her chest as the calico squirmed and the grey purred. “How did you know I like cats? I honestly can’t remember it having come up before.”
“In twelve years of knowing you and nine of marriage, you think I have not been paying attention?” he said, sounding very satisfied with himself. “I am not blind, my love. I see the way your eyes go soft and wide when you see a cat, and the way you brighten when one lets you pet them. I know you love all animals, but it is clear cats have a special place in your heart.”
“They’re small, but independent, like me,” she explained haughtily. Then she laughed, and admitted, “Okay, it’s mostly because they’re cute. Aren’t you? Yes you’re adorable!”
She scratched the grey kitten- the calico having jumped out of her lap to start exploring the room. The grey purred, closing his eyes in satisfaction as he leaned into her fingers. Belial laughed outright at this. “It seems you are as good at massaging kittens as you are elves.”
Morgaine grinned in reply, waggling the fingers of her free hand at him. “It’s all about the having the magic touch. It’s something some people have and some people don’t.”
She picked up the grey cat and kissed him on the top of his head. “I’m thinking maybe Mercury for this little guy.”
“Mercury sounds like a wonderful name for a grey cat, given the way felines tend to be almost made of liquid with the way they move and reform to fit their containers,” Belial joked. Morgaine chortled, setting Mercury down on the floor.
“I can name the other girl later,” she said, leaning closer towards her husband. “For now, I think we should pick up where we left off.”
Belial raised his eyebrows, a coy expression on his face. “So I did good?”
“You did good,” she replied, running her nose along the underside of his chin in a fashion not unlike a cat herself. “Now shut up for a minute.”
He opened his mouth meaning to say something witty, but at that same moment Morgaine put a hand on the back of his neck to run her fingers along his spine and pulled him into a kiss- and he completely forgot what he’d been planning to say.
Mama BearIn this story, dialogue that is in green is Kythian. The rest is in Elvish.
“Are we there yet?”
At eleven years old, Sieg Braham liked to think he was practically grown up. Certainly he was old enough to be able to ride his own horse, or so it seemed to him. Why he was practically as tall as Mother now!
Yet somehow whenever they rode out to visit his grandparents, he found himself sitting double in the saddle with his mother, while his nine year old sister Ophelia did the same with their father. It wasn’t fair.
“We’ll get there when we get there, little raven,” his father Belial remarked with amusement. The elven man was blonde, like almost all the elves in Nid’aigle. Those who weren’t blonde were brunette, with a small smattering of redheads. But Sieg and his sister, thanks to the dominant genes of their human mother, both had black hair. This peculiar feature had earned both of them the affectionate Kythian pet name “little ravens” from Belial.
“I’m sitting patiently, Papa,” Ophelia put in, her dark blue eyes glittering with mischief as she glanced in Sieg’s direction. He stuck his tongue out at her.
“Suck-up.”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“Alright, that’s enough you two,” interjected their mother, Morgaine. “We can turn these horses right back around and go home if you don’t behave. Only think how disappointed Grandma and Grandpa would be if you didn’t get to visit them today because you couldn’t behave?”
“Sorry, Mama,” Ophelia and Sieg chimed in unison, though there was a mulish set to their faces that made Belial and Morgaine trade weary glances.
Sieg enjoyed visits to their paternal grandparents- Belial’s mother and father were very old, and they knew a lot of good stories. Plus they lived close to the forest edge, and the woods were a lot of fun to explore. But it always took like, a billion hours to get there. His mother would scold, and say it was only one hour, not a billion, but Sieg privately thought she was lying about that.
Finally they arrived at Grandma and Grandpa’s place, much to the excitement of the two children. The clambered down out of their saddles as quickly as was safe to do, and bolted into the arms of their grandparents, while Morgaine and Belial watched indulgently.
* * * * *
It was around twilight. The adults were all talking amiably to each other as they prepared for dinner, leaving Sieg and Ophelia to their own devices.
Sieg was bored.
“Pssst,” he hissed to Ophelia, who was reading a book. “Pssssssssssssssst!”
“What?!” she demanded crossly.
“I wanna go on an adventure,” he announced.
“An adventure where?” the young girl demanded.
He grinned broadly, his amber eyes glittering with mischief. “Into the woods behind Grandma and Grandpa’s house. It’s so big we could adventure there for years and never be bored!”
“You’re not supposed to go into the woods, stupid,” she pointed out. “Mama would kill you if she found out.”
“She won’t find out,” he replied dismissively. In a voice that was almost a whisper he added. “And I think you mean she’d kill us. You’re coming with me.”
“I am not!” she snapped. “I’m reading!”
“C’mon, Phee, please? It’s boring by myself.”
“No! You’re gonna get us in trouble!”
“I won’t, I promise. We’ll leave and be back super quick, no one will notice.” he grinned. “Don’t you want cool stories like Grandma and Grandpa have?”
She moaned, snapping her book shut. “Fiiiiiine, I’ll go. But if we get caught I’m blaming you!”
“You blame me for everything anyway,” he pointed out, rolling his eyes.
The two of them waited for a point in the conversation between the adults where all of them started laughing, then quietly slipped outside. Beckoning to his sister, Sieg dashed across the open grass behind their grandparent’s house and shot into the cover of the trees.
“Gah!” Ophelia hissed as a thornbush caught on the sleeve of her dress. She yanked several times, and finally the fabric came loose. She looked woefully at the rip that was left in her sleeve.
“This won’t be easy to explain when we get back, you know,” she pointed out. Sieg shrugged, grinning.
“Don’t be a baby Phee, it’s just a little tear. Maybe Mama and Papa won’t even notice. Now c’mon, which way should we go?”
“I thought this was your adventure,” she said with a smirk. “You should lead the way.”
He grinned back, adopting the lofty grammar of the elven adults. “Fine then- onwards my brave companion, we go forth to dispense righteousness. Let not the evening dew tarnish our bright swords, nor the-”
“Less talking, more walking,” Ophelia interrupted, shoving past him. He followed behind her, bleating “I thought I was gonna lead!”
The two of them wandered aimlessly, occasionally pointing out a bird or strange plant, but mostly being annoyed by the biting bugs and getting their clothing caught on the undergrowth. They were about to give up and go back, when suddenly Sieg cried out in joy.
“Look, Phee! Blackberries!"
He made a beeline for the bushes, Ophelia following close behind him. While most of the berries on the outside of the patch had been picked off by birds, inside the thicket there were still bushels of them. The two children pushed their way through, picking the berries and gleefully eating them.
“See, what did I tell you,” Sieg said with a grin. “Best adventure ever!”
“Yeah, sure,” Ophelia remarked, grinning right back. “Except for the part where we have to explain to Mama and Papa how our tongues turned red!”
Sieg was about to retort, but before he got the chance Ophelia gasped. “Sieg, look behind you!”
Confused, the young boy turned and saw something small, brown, and fluffy hiding under one of the berry bushes. After a minute he caught sight of a gleaming pair of black button eyes, and he realized what it was.
“A baby bear! Wow, I’ve never seen a bear so close!”
“It’s so cute,” Ophelia squealed. “Do you think I could pet it?”
“I dunno, no harm in trying,” he said with a shrug. “I wonder why it’s here by itself. Maybe it’s having a berry adventure too!”
Ophelia laughed, slowly approaching the cub with a hand out. It scooted backwards, whining softly. The young girl made soothing noises, trying to calm it down as she moved closer.
The growl came out of nowhere. Both Sieg and Ophelia froze, looking around frantically for the source of the noise. It sounded again, along with a low huffing that put the hair up on the back of Sieg’s neck.
Then he saw- a fully grown bear, no doubt the cub’s mother, was staring them down. She had reared up on her hind legs, making her appear huge in the eyes of the children, and Sieg could only stare up at her in horror.
“S-sieg, what do we d-do?” Ophelia squeaked, frozen in mid-reach. The bear was glaring at her in particular, still making that strange huffing noise.
“Run!” he yelped, snapping his petrified trance and bolting. Ophelia was hot on his heels, both of them crashing and stumbling through the brush. The bear’s huffing mutated into a tremendous roar, and it plowed after them.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop, keep running!” Sieg bleated. He and Ophelia were going as fast as their legs could carry them, but for such a huge creature the bear was surprisingly fast. It was gaining, and Sieg realized it was going to catch them… and Ophelia, younger and shorter, was the slower of the two.
Just as this registered with him, the boy heard the sound he had been dreading, a sound that made his heart lurch- Ophelia’s pain laden scream.
“Phee!” he screamed, turning on his heel. His sister was lying on her stomach, curled into a tight ball as the bear swatted her back. There was blood gushing from deep gashes across her back and the back of her head.
“Get away from my sister!” Sieg screamed, picking up a stick off of the ground and throwing it at the bear. It barely seemed to feel the impact, but Sieg’s aggressive scream was more effective. The mother bear turned her attention towards the boy, ignoring the mark that cowered in favor of the one that fought back. Knowing he couldn’t possibly fight her, Sieg turned again to run.
“Phee, go back, get Papa!” he called over his shoulder. He hoped that she would- that the bear hadn’t knocked her out, or, or worse…
He didn’t have time to wait and see though, because the bear was gaining and he had to lead it away. Had to keep it distracted. Had to-
“Aaaugh!” he cried, feeling a heavy paw swat him down. He rolled on his side, kicking at the undergrowth as he tried to get space between himself and the bear, but she was on him in an instant. Her jaw closed over his arm, and he shrieked in pain as her fangs bit into him.
I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die…
“Get away from him!” The bear looked up in surprise, just in time to get a facefull of the blunt side of an ax-head. She roared in fury, releasing Sieg’s arm and lashing out blindly with her talons. But her attacker had already skipped out of reach, luring her away from her young target. Sieg realized who his savior was and his spirits soared- Belial. However, the cheer he might have voiced died in his throat when he got a good look at his father and the bear, and realized just how small Belial looked by comparison. If she got a good swing in, of she knocked him down as she’d knocked down both of the children...
“Papa, watch out!” he shrieked. His father gave no indication of having heard. He swung the ax again as the mother bear approached, blunt end facing out. She recoiled from the blow, but lunged again as soon as it had passed, forcing Belial to wretch himself sideways to evade her. Sieg realized the elf wasn’t actually hitting the bear- just trying to keep her at a distance.
At that moment, however, he was hauled bodily to his feet. He turned in surprise to see Morgaine, her face pale as a sheet. She grabbed his arm, and took off running, dragging him along behind.
“You are dead when we get home, do you hear me?” she shrieked, her brown eyes full of a wild light he had never seen in them before. Tears were streaming down the human woman’s face, and Sieg felt as if he were no bigger than a gnat under the weight of the absolute terror in her expression.
When finally they emerged from the treeline, Morgaine fell to her knees, yanking Sieg into an embrace that was so fierce he yelped in pain. His lacerated arm throbbed horribly, but he ignored it, hugging his mother back as they both sobbed with relief.
“I’m sorry, Mama, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it. Is Phee okay, tell me she’s okay, please tell me she’s okay….”
“Ophelia will recover,” came the soft voice of Seig’s grandmother. He looked up at her, to see that her face was gentle but stern. “Her wounds are deep, but she’s being tended by a healer. Morgaine, Sieg will need to be tended as well, his arm looks very bad.”
“I’m half-tempted to let it heal at it’s own speed,” she muttered, but Sieg could tell she didn’t mean it. There was anger in her voice, but it was almost entirely eclipsed by half-choked relief. Her entire body was quivering with the force of her emotions, which only served to make Sieg feel even more guilty for his irresponsible idiocy.
“Where’s Papa?” he asked softly.
“I’m here, Sieg,” Belial replied, emerging from the trees. Sieg squeaked in horror- his father had several long, deep gashes on the side of his head, one just barely missing his left eye. The elf was also limping, and Sieg could see blood staining Belial’s breeches.
“Th-the bear?” Sieg asked, noting that there was no blood on the ax blade. Belial waved a hand dismissively, leaning against a tree to take the weight off his leg.
“She’ll yet live to be a fierce mother of more cubs. After your Mama got you away I curled up and let her attack me until she lost interest.”
“You… you let her hurt you on purpose?” Sieg bleated, horrified.
“Should I have killed her for defending her young?” Belial demanded. “She cannot be faulted for her lack of understanding. In her eyes you were a threat to her children, just as she was a threat to ours. I could not kill her for doing as I did, and condemn her cubs to death.”
The young boy wilted, and he shoved his face into his mother’s shirt. “I”m s-s-sorry. It’s my fault. O-Ophelia and Papa are h-h-hurt, and it’s m-my fault.”
“Yes, it is,” Morgaine said sternly, having calmed down somewhat. “That was very foolish of you. Sieg, your father and I don’t tell you not to do things because we’re trying to be mean. We do it to protect you.”
“I’m s-sorry,” he hiccuped again, huddling even further into her chest. Belial sighed.
“Morgaine, enough. This lesson has been etched into his arm in blood, and into his memory with his sister’s blood and mine. I doubt we need worry of a repeat experiment.”
Morgaine shook her head, and gave no reply. She only hugged Sieg close, tears falling down her cheeks to sprinkle the boy’s raven hair. Guilt tore at the child’s insides.
I won’t make Mama cry. Not again. Not ever.
War is GloryIt was the heart of a Bernian winter on the frontlines of the Langean War. In spite of the best hopes of the Kythian forces, Lange had not beat beaten off easily within the first few months of the conflict. If anything they’d entrenched their lines more deeply, making it plainly obvious that they weren’t going to back down. For the time being the conflict had petered off to occasional raids and skirmishes- no one on either side wanted to engage in a pitched battle in subfreezing temperatures with snow glare in their faces. So both armies settled down to wait the winter out. The Langeans, Bernians, and Rindfellan forces were accustomed to the deep drifts of snow and frigid temperatures, but for the southern Kinean and Corvid forces that had come to support Kyth in the conflict, this was far outside what they were accustomed to. Down in the encampments, the toll of winter’s wrath was starting to show.
It didn’t start among the troops; the first reports came from the local children of Konik. An outbreak of the flu. No surprises there, it was the right season for it and the very young and very old were always the hardest hit in these situations, but usually most healthy adults were spared. So when the first of the southern troops began to cough and swoon, the Bernian healers hadn’t thought much of it. An isolated incident surely. But unlike in previous winters, this year Konik was full to overflowing with soldiers, many of whom were not native to the area and had no resistances. Within a week at least a third of the encampment was bowled over by the infection, and it became obvious this was going to be a problem.
Very quickly a shuffling of the strategy for this winter war was undertaken. Despite the insistence from the healers that these men needed rest, it was simply not possible to remove all of the soldiers who’d fallen ill from duty. There weren’t enough of the northern soldiers immune to the local parasites to pick up the slack, and surely the Langians would notice if suddenly there was a dramatic drop in the number of soldiers patrolling the Kythian lines. Instead, the northern soldiers were sent to the front for patrolling and fighting, while the southern soldiers were kept further back away from the lines to guard closer to the encampments- for the most part, anyway.
The Corvids had brought along with them a force of about forty elvish knights from Nid’aigle, who initially hoped they might be spared the joyous fits their fellow Corvids were enjoying. It helped that for the most part the elves kept isolated from the humans, an isolation reinforced by the language barrier that existed between the two parties. Very few of the elves had enough modern Kythian to hold a conversation with the human forces; only three total. One of these three was a man named Belial Braham.
It was a frigid day in mid-January, a week and a half into the outbreak, when Belial and his commander were called to meet with some of the human forces in charge of the army. Belial was still rather bemused to find himself in the position of being a liaison between the elves and the humans- he’d only been promoted to squad leader about four years prior, and it was still very strange for him to be in any sort of authority position. Well, aside from that of being a father, but that was less about the authority most of the time and more about simply making it understood to his children why something should or should not be done. Commanding troops required a certain amount of self-assurance and an authoritarian air that gave them confidence and trust in you, so that they’d obey your orders in the heat of a moment without question. Certainly Belial never would have considered himself for such a role but, as the commander had observed, marrying and becoming a father had steadied him a great deal and done wonders for his confidence.
Still, this wasn’t a duty Belial was looking forward to. It had nothing to do with the nobles themselves, of course- just having to walk across half the city to the castle for the meeting. It was frigid, far colder than he’d ever imagined cold could be. He had on three layers of thick wool and fur coats and he was still freezing. When at the start of autumn the elves had been issued a set of bizarre fur caps with flaps over where the ears would go, the elves had been half-convinced that the humans were having a go at them. But as soon as the temperatures plummeted and their long, slender ears began to turn blue from the chill, all of the elves donned the hats wore them without shame.
Belial was rubbing his forehead when Anri came to fetch him- he had been doing some paperwork for most of the morning and was getting a headache.
“You alright, Sir Braham?” she asked him in Elvish, and he waved a hand dismissively.
“Nothing I haven’t powered through before, Commander. Let’s go see what the plans are, I imagine our fearless leaders are in a royally bad mood about how sick everyone is.”
“No doubt,” Anri agreed. Belial pushed the travel desk away and stood up from his cot- immediately regretting it as his head swam and he stumbled forwards a few steps.
“Braham, what’s-” Anri said, in Kythian this time. Presumably so the other elves wouldn’t overhear. Belial laughed a little breathlessly. He didn’t feel in the least amused- his skull was slamming with every heartbeat and he was disorientingly dizzy- but as he had already told Anri, he’d powered past worst.
“Must have stood up too fast,” he assured her. “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”
The commander looked at her knight doubtfully, but decided not to press it. The two of them walked out of the barracks that had been assigned to the Nid’aigle company, and as always Belial braced himself for the wall of cold- and hit it, sucking in air in an involuntary wince. He was shivering within seconds, and despite her usual stoic demeanor it was clear that Anri wasn’t enjoying the weather anymore then he was. Neither of them commented on it- they’d both heard plenty of the northern troops complaining about tender-footed southerners who couldn’t handle a little snow- but the further through the snowy streets they went, the harder Belial shivered. He was panting trying to keep up with the commander, everything swimming around him as sweat beaded on his brow… wait, sweat? He was freezing, why was he sweating?
“C-commander” he panted, his voice emerging as a thin rasp. Anri jerked around immediately at the sound of it, her eyes narrowing. Belial stumbled to a stop as she faced him, hugging his arms to his chest against the cold even as his face was becoming tacky with moisture. Wordlessly the commander took off one of her gloves and pressed the back of her hand to Belial’s forehead.
“Pit! You’re like an oven Braham, and your chest sounds like it has gravel in it. Where did this even come from all of a sudden…” She scowled. “So much for avoiding whatever this thing is the humans have, I suppose. You’re definitely sick, Sir Braham.”
He shook his head with a groan; it was taking all his concentration to stay upright between the dizziness and the pain in his skull. “I hadn’t noticed, thank you for letting me know.”
The elf woman’s eyebrows shot up, though otherwise her expression was neutral. “Was that sarcasm, Sir Braham? Ill or not, keep your tongue in check; you are a soldier and a ranking officer, you have an example to set.”
The knight winced, bowing his head. “Yes ma’am.”
She continued to observe him impassively for a moment more, then her demeanor unexpectedly softened. “It would be you first, as much time as you spend with the humans. You’re going to be the scourge of the company once the others start getting sick, I hope you realize that.”
“Just now I can’t really bring himself to care,” he rasped. “I don’t know what happened, aside from a headache I felt alright, but it’s as if when I stood up I flipped some sort of trigger.”
“Well there’s not much we can do for it now,” she said. “We still have the meeting to attend, and considering that others are being forced to run patrols with this malaise, I can’t very well justify letting you out of simply observing a meeting and passing along what happened to the other elves. You can go to the physicians when you’ve finished with your duties, but you must finish them first.”
“Yes Commander,” Belial agreed automatically. As Anri turned and began to lead the way up to road again, he felt the faintest of tickling sensations in the back of his throat, and coughed in an attempt to clear it.
* * * * *
Belial might as well not have gone to the meeting. By the time it was over he was swooning, barely coherent, his fever having spiked dangerously high. It took the last of his energy to stumble after Anri and let her guide him to the physicians. Wracking coughs wrenched themselves from his lungs, and he felt like someone was driving a pike into his skull. An exasperated physician guided him to a bench to wait until one of them was free to look at him, and exhaustion crashed over him so that he was asleep the instant he sat down.
The elf wasn’t sure how long he was sitting there for. Long enough to yank himself back to semi-awareness with fits of coughing at least four times. Eventually he was roused by a rough hand on his chin, and his eyes fluttered open. The face of the man standing over him was indistinct at first, but it resolved itself a moment later into a white bearded old man.
“Oh! You’re one of the elves, aren’t you?” he said, catching sight of the knight’s bright amber eyes as he opened them. Belial still had the ear-covering cap on, concealing his long pointed ears. He nodded, and the man relaxed a fraction more.
“You speak Kythian?”
“Aye,” Belial said hoarsely. “Fluently.”
“One of the translators; of course you’d be the first to get sick. Well at least if you speak Kythian that at least makes this simpler. We were hoping your people were immune though; would have saved some of our resources at least.”
The elf grunted, his eyes sliding closed again. “So were we, sirrah.”
The physician tapped him lightly on the cheek. “Please try to stay awake Sir, it’s harder to do this if you’re an unconscious deadweight.”
Resigned, Belial pried his eyes open again. A fit of coughing hit him, and he turned his head aside so that he didn’t cough in the physician's face.
“Well we’ve definitely got coughing and fever,” the doctor noted dryly. “What other symptoms are you experiencing?”
Belial frowned in concentration, trying to tally up the various points of physical misery he was enduring at that moment.
“I have a headache; though I’m alright now trying to stand makes me feel dizzy and nauseous. I think the coughing has irritated my throat, because it hurts as well. And I’m exhausted.”
“Any nasal congestion?” The physician asked. At Belial’s blank look, he clarified, “Ah, is your nose stopped up?”
“Oh,” Belial shook his head. “Not at the-” he was interrupted by another round of coughing, and the physician scowled.
“Well we’re pretty short on supplies at the moment, but seeing as you’re one of the translators and we need to be able to talk to the elf healers you brought with you if we’re going to start seeing a lot of elf cases…” He turned to someone else, muttering under his breath, and the second person darted off. “I need to double-check with the elf healers if we can give you the same medicines we give the human soldiers; think you’re up for translating?”
“I think I have no choice,” Belial said, misery plain in his voice. “I think I can manage, as long as you don’t need me to stand up.”
“The dizziness is a side-effect of the fever,” the physician explained. “You’re getting dehydrated. Here, at least I know you can have this.”
He walked away for a moment, and when he returned he handed Belial a cup of steaming water, a humorless smirk on his face. “At least we’re not going to run short on water anytime soon, with all the snow we can boil. Drink this- as long as it’s hot it’ll also help soothe your throat, at least a little.”
The elf took a sip of the stuff, and nearly gagged on it- it was scorching, it must have come straight out of a kettle on the fire. The physician sighed.
“Just breathe the steam until it cools off. That will help the dryness in your throat, and then you can actually drink it once it’s cool.”
Belial grunted in acknowledgement, holding the mug close to his mouth and letting the hot steam warm his abraded windpipe. He was beginning to feel rather cross with the whole situation. When the war had started back in the summer, he’d spoken to a number of Bernian soldiers, who’d warned him of the sickness that northern winter could bring. If they’d known that, why hadn’t the northern physicians planned for such an outbreak and stockpiled supplies while the passes were still open?
A stupid question, and the answer came to him almost as soon as the question formed. The relative health of most of the northern troops was evidence of the reason the healers hadn’t been preparing; it simply hadn’t occurred to them that such an out of control outbreak would happen. Why should it? It seemed obvious now that the southern soldiers would have fewer resistances to northern disease, but hindsight bias was rather strong in the elf’s mind at this point. That and the fact that it was hard for Belial to be his usual patient, understanding self with a raging fever clouding his ability to reason.
The elf healer eventually arrived, and when she saw Belial’s condition her lips pursed. “I suppose we’re really in for it now. You look like death, Sir Braham.”
Belial scowled. “I feel like death. But duty is duty and-”
“And the human physician needs to know if his medicines will or won’t poison you to death. Very well, what is he planning to use?”
With Belial as go-between, the elf healer and human physician discussed various herbal mixtures and their effectiveness on elven physiology. Every word that he spoke abraded Belial’s throat like sandpaper, and having to concentrate on the translations was making his headache even worse. He couldn’t honestly remember the last time he’d been this ill- the occasional cold or stomach upset was the worst he’d had in decades. Part of him felt like he was behaving like a small child, to be this resentful about being made to function normally, but that part was silenced by the rest of him that was just too miserable to care how childish he appeared.
He dimly realized that his head wasn’t the only thing hurting now- his entire body ached. His back, his arms, his legs, all of them felt like they were weighted with lead. He wanted to lie down so his back at least would stop hurting, but there wasn’t really room on the bench to do so and if he did he’d probably fall asleep again. Eventually he managed to cough and rasp his way through the conversation between the two doctors, and the now empty water mug was plucked from his hands and replaced by a clay beaker of something brownish-green with leaves floating in it.
“This is the mix we agreed on,” the physician said. “It should take down the fever and reduce the headache so you can function. I’ll give you a few packets of it to brew into a tea- take it with your meals, but don’t exceed four doses a day. Understand?”
Belial nodded, prudently waiting a bit for the mix to cool off this time before drinking it. It tasted bitter, peppermint and yarrow and feverfew and a number of other things he couldn’t name washing over his tongue. As he forced himself to down the mess, the physician explained that the coughing he’d have to live with- they simply didn’t have enough supplies to deal with that when there were others who were coughing so badly it was making it impossible to breathe, or stimulating them to throw up.
Once he’d finished he medicine, the physician instructed him to sleep- it would take a while to kick in, and in the meantime he might as well get some rest because as soon as he was able he’d have to power through the illness and resume his normal duties. Not needing a second invitation, Belial handed the beaker back to the physician, closed his eyes and was almost instantly unconscious.
* * * * *
Two days later, and at least eight other elves had been hit with the flu. As Anri had predicted there was some grumbling and resentment towards Belial from the healthy ones having to take up the slack. He endured their irritation with as much grace as he was enduring his own illness- which is to say, he was as irritable as a hornet whose nest had been kicked and had to stop himself multiple times from snapping at the idiots to just leave him alone. The medicine the physicians had given him didn’t eliminate his fever entirely, but they did bring it down to a low enough grade that he was able to function, albeit not without a good deal of fatigue and achiness. His headache was also reduced, but when the stuffy nose the healer had warned him about kicked in on the second day of his illness, his face became as painful as his skull had previously been.
He did his best not to complain about it, especially since most of the northerners were entirely unsympathetic. If anything they were more resentful than the healthy southern soldiers, since their squads were having to run double-duty to make up for all the ill southerners. It was causing no small amount of tension between the northern and southern factions, which their commanders were having to try and dispel.
The situation wasn’t helped at all when, on the third day after Belial had fallen ill, Anri suddenly doubled over in the snow clutching her middle, and began wheezing until she lost the contents of her stomach. Her fever spiked not long after that, and she was hard pressed to stop coughing long enough to speak or eat. The commander being as she was, she refused most medications, insisting she could deal with it and the frontline fighters were a higher priority- accepting only a cough suppressant so that she could communicate with people coherently. As miserable as Belial was, he couldn’t imagine how Anri managed to attend command meetings and converse intelligently with the other generals in her condition. Especially since the northern generals were inclined to view the sick as weak southern deadweights.
“So what have the patrols to report?” asked one of the human higher-ups. Belial opened his mouth to reply, having just taken reports from the elven patrols, when he was seized by a fit of coughing. It lasted a bit longer then he would have liked, earning an impatient scowl from the general and an, “Are you quite finished, Sir Braham?”
“S-sorry,” he gasped, before he lost himself to the wheezing again. He finally managed to hold himself together long enough to give his report, but but the time it was done his throat felt like it had been lacerated by knives and his eyes and nose were streaming.
It was something of a testament to how miserable he felt that when Belial received a letter from his wife Morgaine, whom he treasured more than all the world, he stuffed it unopened into his desk drawer and instead spent his time at liberty sleeping. It would still be there once he was well again, and his eyes resented every moment he held them open.
Usually a flu like this would resolve itself within two weeks, but by the end of the second week of the infection none of the ill soldiers had yet recovered. The physicians somewhat testily pointed out that this was because they were being kept hopping as if they were healthy men, running patrols and planning strategy and writing reports when they should have been resting, and because the fevers which should have been helping fight off the infection were being suppressed. The leaders of the army where unmoved. The Langeans weren’t relying on backup from southern troops ill-suited to the northern climate- even if this flu somehow managed to invade their camps, it wouldn’t hit them anywhere near as hard as it had hit the Kythians. If the soldiers had to be sniffly and achey, that was a small price to pay for keeping them functional.
About a week into his own illness, Belial received a summons to the castle- apparently there was a new assignment lined up for those elves who were still healthy. By this point nineteen of the forty elves who’d come to Lange were now ill, and there wasn’t much of anywhere in Konik one could go where they wouldn’t hear sniffling and coughing in surplus. With resignation, Belial dutifully hauled his tired, achy body up to the castle to collect the dispatches he would need to translate. On his way back out of the castle, however, he was seized by a particularly strong coughing fit. He stumbled, bracing himself against the stone wall as his lungs seemed to be attempted to escape his chest entirely
The fit finally subsided, leaving him gasping for air as he leaned against the wall, sweat from the fever rolling down his face. He realized dimly that he wasn’t alone, in the hallway- there was someone standing in his peripheral vision. He glanced over to see who his audience was, a little cross at whoever it was, when he realized he recognized that face- blonde hair restrained by a silver circlet, sky blue eyes, a carefully neutral expression.
Alain Stallion, Belial thought, unable to suppress a grimace. Back in the summer he’d had the honor of talking to this man personally, when he came to ask about the elves and how they lived. It was at least partially thanks to Alain that Belial had ended up in the position of diplomat between the elvish and human forces of the war. And he could very vividly remember them discussing the pitfalls of Bern’s winters- illness had been more an implication then anything either of them mentioned directly, but Belial still didn’t particularly want to hear an “I told you so” at that moment.
But Alain said nothing. He simply looked Belial squarely in the eyes for a moment, then turned and continued on his way. The elf sighed, coughing a little more, than pushed himself off the wall and continued back towards the elven encampment.
* * * * *
“Sir Braham?”
Belial looked up from his desk. Nominally he was supposed to be working on translating some documents, but at some point he’d just slumped forwards with his face buried in his hands, coughing and sniffling and not being able to quite muster up the self-discipline to force himself to finish the task. He was just so tired…
But that voice commanded his attention, despite the fact that it was raspy with illness and heavy with fatigue as well. He looked up to see Anri, leaning against the cot above his as she looked down at him. It was pretty indicative of how wretched she felt that she was openly leaning on a support.
“Yes Commander?” he said, not even trying to hide the fact that he hadn’t been working or apologize for it. For her part she only lifted an eyebrow, her lips tight.
“Your services are needed in the field today, Sir Braham. I mentioned the sorts of traps that we set around Nid’aigle as a possible precaution against Langean incursions while much of the army is still ill, and it’s been decided that at the very least trying out a few of the simpler ones over the swath of territory that sees the most skirmishes can't hurt. I’ve asked Astrid, Basile, Cyrille and Mathis to see to it since they’re the most experienced hands we have with us in setting the traps. But since there are only four of them and I can’t spare enough squads to get all the traps set quickly enough, they’ll have to direct a few squads of human soldiers.”
Belial sighed, rubbing his aching head and adopting a wistful smile. “I remember the days when I was a knight and did knight things instead of a translator with a fancy title.” He put up a hand before Anri could chide him, adding “I know, it is necessary and I shall see active combat again come the spring when the fighting resumes in earnest. And honestly given how much I hate fighting and killing I would rather be doing this.” He sneezed, moaning a little. “Forgive me Commander, the longer this illness persists the harder it is for me to filter my unpleasant thoughts with logic before they emerge. I would never have imagined I could complain so.”
He sneezed again, this time three emerging in rapid succession and morphing into a violent coughing fit. With a frustrated growl as it subsided he reached for a kerchief. Anri sighed, apparently not even able to find the energy to chide him when they were both equally miserable. “Just help set the traps, Braham.”
“Aye Commander,” he said habitually, and blew his nose.
Belial couldn’t remember off the top of his head if the four elven knight she was to be working with were among the ill or not; there were pros and cons to both eventualities. If they were sick, at least he didn’t have to worry about them later blaming him for infecting them if they took ill after this. And they could all commiserate being ill and ill-tempered together. However that would also mean their productivity would be held down and their concentration lagging, which wasn’t the best thing for setting traps to snare the enemy. On the whole, it was probably better if they weren’t sick, even if that meant they’d be glaring daggers at Belial the whole time and desperately trying to keep as far away from him as possible.
It turned out to be a mixed bag- most of the trap setters were healthy, but Basile’s entire face was puffy and his eyes swollen from congested sinuses, and in spite of his attempts to stem it he had a near-constant nasal drip. The human squads they were working with, of which there were two, were also scattered lot health-wise. Some seemed to be perfectly fine, others were moving with the slow deliberation of an aging arthritic as they coughed and sniffled.
The elven knights saluted to Belial when he approached, a gesture he returned quickly so that they could both drop the formality- he could feel a coughing fit coming on and lost control of it almost immediately after their hands fell.
Once he got himself in hand again, Belial turned to the human squad leaders and gave them a polite if not entirely sincere smile, “Corporal Belial Braham of Nid’aigle Squad 5, at your service. I’ll be providing translations on the behalf of our-” he coughed again, and the human squad leaders leaned away instinctively. “On the behalf of our trap masters. Forgive me gentlemen, I am not entirely well at the moment.”
Some of the faces that looked back at him were sympathetic, others impatient, but none of them opted to comment on it. “So what sort of traps were you lookin’ to set then?” One of the humans asked instead. Belial forwarded the question to the elves, and repeated their answers back in Kythian.
“We can suspend a log in the branches of the trees high above, mostly hidden, with a rope that can be cut to make it crash down on the enemy below. This will kill some of them, and break the formation of the rest. Pitfalls, carefully marked in such a way that our own troops recognize them but enemies won’t. If there is a vulnerable area that needs protecting but we can’t spare patrols to guard, we can set up a field of spikes half-buried in the soil to ruin the feet of the horses. However this carries the obvious drawback of making the area inaccessible to us as well, so think carefully before you plant that one. There are other varieties we use back home, but most require at least a small amount of magic and aren’t really usable here.” He coughed, holding up a hand to the elves to wait. As often happened when he had to do excessive amounts of translating, he could feel a pounding starting up in his head despite the medicine he was on to suppress his headaches.
Continuing where they’d left off, the elves added, “Not only will these traps fulfil their designated specific purpose, they’ll also demoralize the enemy, keep them stressed and suspicious, slow down troop movements as the enemy is forced to sweep an area for traps before progressing, stop a section or platoon entirely by forcing them to deal with casualties, create areas that the enemy is not willing to pass through whether because of real traps or imagined ones, and… Do you really want me to pass that along?”
Cyrille nodded, smirking, and Belial sighed. “And the pitfalls sometimes catch wild animals, so hey, who can say no to effortlessly obtained fresh meat?”
The reaction from the human soldiers to that was mixed; some laughed, some rolled their eyes. But the tension eased a fraction, at least. The reasons that the elves had cited off for the effectiveness of the traps all made sense and had sound military logic behind them. They were perfect for warfare where the enemy vastly outnumbered your forces- which was why the elves employed them. At any given time there were usually no more than 60-70 knights in Nid’aigle, and most would be off on various missions rather than at home. They had to become extremely creative in evening the odds against Courdonian raids.
However, theory ended up being easier than practice. Setting the traps involved a lot of hard manual labor in the freezing cold, and after about two hours of work one of the ill humans collapsed, his fever spiking. Forty minutes later a second also collapsed, and twenty after that a third. Each time someone went down a healthier fellow would have to escort them back to Konik, so by the third collapse they were down six men.
“Why didn’t they send one of the healthy northern squads to help with this?” Astrid demanded finally, as a fourth sick soldier had to stop and lean against a tree before he too collapsed. Belial shook his head, a sneeze escaping him before he could reply.
“It’s simple,” he said, his voice a barely audible rasp- he was very quickly losing it from the strain of talking so much. “The tensions between the healthy northerners and the ill southerners are still running high right now. The Bernian and Rindfellan soldiers are already having to run double patrols to pick up our slack. How much more resentful do you think they’d be if they were also asked to work ‘menial tasks’ like this? Especially since I’m sick and so is Basile. It would be a constant reminder of why they have to do this despite being overworked, and it would possibly push this simmering pot to a boil.”
Belial coughed, but it was a very weak cough- he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up. Even if he didn’t pass out, his voice would be entirely gone within another hour, and then there would be no way for the elves to communicate with the human soldiers unless by some wild fluke one of them could read if Belial wrote the instructions down for them.
But it wasn’t any of the ill soldiers who fell next- it was Mathis, one of the elf soldiers, one who had to all appearances been perfectly healthy when they first started. When he unexpectedly fell over in the snow, panting and sweating, it became obvious that he must have already been ill and not realized. One of the human squad leaders swore, throwing down his hat and kicking up a good deal of snow in his zeal.
“Enough; clearly this is as far as we’re getting for the day, if one of the elves running the show is out for the count. Let’s get back before we have to carry back half the group on litters, we can finish tomorrow.”
The other human squad leaders murmured in agreement, and despite his inclination to protest- they really ought to get as much done as they could while it was still daylight- Belial only sighed and nodded. His throat was feeling distinctly lacerated again, and he couldn’t help but feel like a sword in his skull would hurt less then the headache that was near-blinding him.
Once they had all made it back to camp, however, he decided to swallow his own misery and check on Anri. She was his superior first and foremost, but they’d known each other for centuries and even if professional distance meant that wouldn’t exactly call her a “friend,” he cared about her and knew that she cared about her men a lot more then she let on.
Knocking on the door to her office, he heard a short moan of, “Yes, come in, come in.”
He walked in, wincing a bit at how she looked. Though thanks to her medications she wasn’t coughing, the elven woman’s face was flushed crimson and her eyes were dull with fatigue. Despite this she kept her face deliberately neutral, until she saw who her guest was. Then she allowed herself the faintest of smiles.
“Ah, Sir Braham, you’re back rather sooner than I expected. What can I do for you?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but a string of violent sneezes cut him off, making his eyes water from the pain in his head as it whipped forward on his neck. Anri quirked an eyebrow. “Still no better, I see?”
“No,” he admitted, his voice coming out as scarcely more then a parched whisper. He coughed, then took a ragged breath and went on, “But I’ll live. Four of the human soldiers collapsed, and then Mathis took sick, so we decided to call it a day. I came to see how you were faring, Commander.”
“How noble of you,” she remarked dryly. “My head is splitting and I think if I stop working for ten minutes I’ll probably pass out at my desk, but that moots nothing- there is work to be done and I must do it.”
She coughed, but only once and shallowly- clearly whatever the physicians had given her for that much was working, at least. Belial hadn’t really expected her to be so frank about how miserable she was, but then again they were both sick- presumably she knew he was equally miserable.
“Braham,” Anri said suddenly, her voice unexpectedly soft, “While I appreciate you thinking of me, if you’ve time to socialize you’ve time to rest. And judging by the fact that you can’t even speak properly I think you need it. Prioritize getting yourself over this cursed malaise so that we can get back to our work as normal. I’ll survive, and so will you.”
He opened his mouth to object, but another fit of coughing wracked him and he promptly forgot the argument he was about to make. “I think that’s a good idea,” he said weakly. “I’ll be in the barracks if you or anyone else needs me.”
She waved a dismissive hand, and Belial turned and headed back out. He realized his fever must have been spiking, because he could feel that fatigue and dizziness mounting again and it took all of his concentration to stumble back to the barracks. It wasn’t time yet for another dose of the fever medicine- was he developing a resistance to it? Wonderful, that meant yet another trip to the healers in the hopes they could prescribe him an alternative. But that could wait. Right now his mind was consumed by one thought and one thought alone; sleep.
He reached the barracks and collapsed onto his cot, lying there in a dazed torpor as he felt his face growing hot and sweat beading on his forehead. Not even bothering to remove his hat or boots, he closed his eyes and gave himself over to unconsciousness.
He woke himself with a violent fit of coughing several hours later, still just as achy and exhausted as he’d been when he passed out. It was dark, a few candles lit beside beds as the elves worked on this or that, but otherwise it was impossible to see much. Belial rolled over, about to go back to sleep when he noticed something near his head shimmering in the watery light of a nearby candle.
The elf frowned, glancing to the side. There was a tin on the travel desk by his cot. Who’d left that there? Frowning, he reached down and picked it up. When he opened the lid, he saw that it was full of long strings of black; licorice.
Candy? Why did someone leave a tin of candy on my desk? Belial thought, bewildered. He realized that there was a small sheaf of paper adhered to the bottom of the tin lid. Peeling it off, he saw that someone had written on it in Kythian.
“Boil in water for cough suppressant.”
As if on cue, Belial’s chest seized with another fit of wheezing, and he almost dropped the tin. This sounded like the sort of thing one of the northern soldiers would pull as a prank on the gullible southerners but… well most of the idiots immature enough for such pranks couldn’t read or write. Nor would it do much good for them to write a note in Kythian and leave it for an elf. Belial didn’t know who’d left this, but he at this point he was willing to try anything.
“Spring cannot come soon enough,” he rasped bitterly, setting the tin down and going to fetch his kettle.
EvilBelial knelt down in front of the stewpot in the fireplace, tipping the vegetables he had chopped up into it to simmer for the next few hours until dinner. He was alone in the house for once, with his wife running her shop, and his children off doing their own things. It was strange for him to think that not so long ago, he never had company in this place. He’d lived in the small cottage alone for nearly a hundred and fifty years. Now, however, there was an addition to it for a bedroom for the children, and the times when any one person occupied the building alone were vanishingly rare.
Suddenly, the elf was startled by a tremendous slamming from the front door. He looked around to find that his son had walked in, an expression of throttled frustration on his face. As soon as the door closed behind him, Sieg lost his tenuous grip on that frustration and kicked over one of chairs by the dining table.
“Of all the stubborn, arrogant, pig-headed, lousy-”
“Sieg,” Belial called with weary patience, pushing himself up into a standing position, “What happened?”
The half-elf responded with a string of insults in both Kythian and Elvish, prompting a sigh from his father. Despite only being thirteen, Sieg was already showing early signs of hitting the moody stage that was common in human teenagers. Belial had hoped his son might take more after the elvish side of his heritage in this respect. Elven hormones weren’t all the same as human ones, and in general adolescence for them was more confusing than volatile as their bodies began to prepare to stop aging for the next several centuries. It seemed, however, that his mother’s genetics were the stronger ones in this regard.
Which means I’ll need to get used to weathering these temperamental outbursts, because it isn’t going away anytime soon, the elf thought with resignation.
Once Sieg had run out of unflattering things to shout and transitioned instead to standing in the middle of the room panting, Belial folded his arms and lifted an eyebrow. “All finished, then? Because if the chair is broken you’re the one who’s going to spend the afternoon fixing it.”
The half-elf flushed, looking down at the article of furniture in question. Muttering something that might have been an apology, he bent down and righted the chair- fortunately it was undamaged, save for a bit of scuffing where it had hit the floor.
“Destroying our possessions isn’t a very productive outlet for your anger,” Belial said cooly. “Especially not for someone who’s supposed to be training to become a knight- self control and discipline are of integral importance in battle.”
“Yes, Papa,” the young boy said, looking down. There was still a mulish set to his face though, and Belial could tell whatever had upset him was still heavy on his mind. The elf sat down at the table, gesturing at the chair Sieg had just righted to indicate he should do the same.
“So, what happened?”
“It was stupid,” Sieg admitted as he sat down. “I had just finished my classes for the day and had some free time, so I went to see Mama at the lock shop. We talked for a bit, and then she said that she had to go do an installation and asked if I wanted to come along and keep her company. I said I would, so we both went. But apparently the woman who commissioned the lock from Mama did it without asking her husband about it, so when we got there he refused to talk to us. He let us in to install the lock, and he paid Mama, but he wouldn’t say a word. He just stared at us like we were some sort of bug under his shoes.”
The young boy scowled, “But then as we were leaving, he started talking to his wife- I think he assumed we couldn’t hear him, but we could. He criticized Mama’s Elvish and said she… she had a lot of nerve for waltzing around Nid’aigle like she owned it when her ancestors forced him to abandon his home. He just… his voice, he was so arrogant!”
The knight shook his head, “Sieg, you’ve encountered such things before- you know there are elves here who are stubborn and cling to the past. It can’t be helped.”
“But it’s not fair!” he objected.
“No, it’s not,” Belial agreed. “But neither is the fact that the elves were driven out of their homelands by human greed and aggression. The world is full of things that are not fair, my little raven.”
“Don’t you care?” Sieg demanded. “Doesn’t it bother you? The elves who treat her that way think they’re better than her, but they aren’t!”
“Of course I care,” Belial replied forcefully. “Never for a moment entertain the thought that I don’t. But you’re also right about the fact that they aren’t better than her. Your mother is a strong, capable woman and she is more than able to handle the condescension of a few bitter elves.”
“But… but it’s not fair,” Sieg echoed softly, though his voice sounded more sad than angry now. Belial felt a rush of sympathy for his son, and reached across the table to squeeze Sieg’s shoulder.
“I understand, Sieg. She’s your mother, and you want to defend her- you want her to be accepted, and loved as you love her. But not everyone shares that feeling, and you can’t force them to, so you feel helpless. It’s only natural. But,” he added, raising an eyebrow. “Kicking over chairs and screaming at people who had no part in the issue doesn’t help anything. There are much better ways to… how did your mother put it? To vent your anger.”
Sieg winced, looking away. For a time he said nothing, just sat silently stewing. Then he glanced back up at his father. “Papa… how do you do it? How is it you never get angry? Not even just with the elves, you don’t get angry with people who really deserve it either. Like… like the Courdonians. Every few months they ooze up out of Courdon and attack Nid’aigle. Usually we repel them, but sometimes they do manage to snatch some of us and get to the border before we realize. They’re just… just evil, how can you not hate them?”
Belial folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, his expression pensive. “How to explain this… Let me ask you a question Sieg- where does ‘evil’ come from?”
“I, uh,” the half-elf stammered, looking startled, “I don’t know? Isn’t it just there?”
“Hardly,” Belial replied, waving a hand dismissively. “People aren’t born good or evil. Everyone is the same at the start of their lives. It’s our experiences in life and how we chose to shape ourselves in response to them that determines what sort of a person we are. That said- where does evil come from?”
Sieg though for a moment, leaning forward against the table. Finally his eyes lit, and he looked up, “From greed. It was like that with the Langians, wasn’t it? They attacked and killed us because they wanted to steal our lands. And the Courdonians attack us to steal our people and make them slaves. They do it because they’re greedy.”
“The Langian territories are mountainous, and not very fertile,” Belial admonished gently. “They wanted Kythian land because they wanted farmlands they could use to better feed their people. As for the Courdonians… yes, their practice of slavery is pure greed, but you’re wrong. Greed alone does not make someone evil. You can want a thing with every fiber of your being and not be willing to stoop to evil methods to acquire it. Try again.”
The young boy frowned, and looked down again as he thought about it. Belial was reminded tremendously of how Morgaine had always done this when he first met her- when he presented her with a difficult problem, she didn’t become annoyed and give up. She thought about it until she came up with a solution. It seemed she’d been teaching her children how to do the same.
“From hate?” Sieg said finally. “If you hate something, you dislike it enough that you are willing to do anything you can to ruin it, and you don’t care who or what gets hurt in the process.”
“No again,” Belial replied. “And to explain why, we have to examine where hate comes from. You see Sieg, hate is an emotion of passion- you have to care very, very deeply in order to hate something. Now, what is another emotion of passion?”
“Love?” the half-elf guessed, and his father smiled.
“Exactly. Love and hate may seem opposites, but they are actually two sides of the very same coin. They are the emotions of passion, and are born from a heart that cares very deeply for something or someone. Hate, when you boil away all the complications and individual circumstances that nurture it, is an emotion born of lost love. It doesn’t have to be love for a person- it can be love of a possession, or a home, or even of yourself. But when something happens that damages that loving relationship, the person who felt the love becomes angry and bitter, and redirects all of that passion they felt for whatever they loved into an equally passionate loathing for whatever they perceive to be the cause of the loss. They focus all of their negative feelings onto something or someone else as a distraction from the pain of their loss. That is hatred.”
“But,” Belial went on, “hating something doesn’t make you evil; it doesn’t mean you’ll act on the hate. You can be bitter and resentful and never forgive whatever it is you perceive to have wronged you, but you can also chose to simply do your best to live with that hatred and move on with your life despite it.”
“So where does evil come from?” Sieg asked.
“Evil is born when someone who feels hate, or greed, or whatever other negative inclinations, decides to harden their heart and act upon them. It is a numbness of the soul, a killing of the conscience. At it’s base level, evil is born from a void of emptiness where a person chooses not to feel anything at all.”
The elf shook his head sadly, “The problem with closing oneself off from things like guilt and remorse is that it also closes you off from other, positive emotions too. Someone who is truly, incorrigibly evil cannot truly love- to know love is to know empathy, and to know empathy is to know compassion. Evil and compassion are completely incompatible with each other.”
Belial reached across the table and put his hand over his son’s. “That is why I don’t get angry at the Courdonians, Sieg. Because I pity them. For all their malice and greed, for all that they have to be stopped, I feel sorrier for them then you could ever imagine. There is a very fundamental sense of the sanctity of life that they simply do not have. And because they lack it, their ability to bond with other people is irreversibly impaired- love, in the truest sense of the word, will always be alien to them. How can I not be saddened to think thus, when my life would be woefully empty without the love I know for you, your sister, your mother, and my parents?”
Sieg frowned, raising an eyebrow at his father. “I guess I can see what you’re saying, but still- they made their own choice, didn’t they? To close themselves off from emotions, I mean. I can’t really feel sorry for someone who doesn’t love because they choose not to.”
“I suppose you could see it that way,” Belial acknowledged. “And I would not disagree with the sentiment in theory. But think about it this way- you lose a lot of time hating and being angry with people. Love and sympathy at least make you feel good- hate and bitterness makes you miserable. What would be accomplished by my hating the Courdonians, the Langians, or even the elves who refuse to accept your mother? Nothing, because my hate isn’t going to make them change. You can’t fight hatred with hatred- it just turns into an endless, self-perpetuating cycle of destruction with both sides taking it in turn to seek revenge and domination.”
“So, what, you can beat evil by feeling sorry for it?” Sieg asked sarcastically. “Should we tell the next bunch of mercenaries who raid us how very badly we feel that they don’t care that they’re ruining our lives?”
Belial laughed. “No, I suppose not. But let me ask you another question- if evil comes from turning numb and closing yourself off from your emotional bonds to other people, what then is the opposite of that?”
The half-elf rested his chin in one hand, looking sideways at the cooking pot which was still simmering in the fireplace. He was silent for longer this time, but Belial didn’t rush him. The elf knew that these answers would be stronger if Sieg could find them on his own.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “The opposite of ‘evil’ is supposed to be ‘good’ but…”
A thought seemed to occur to him, and Sieg turned back to face Belial, “Papa, didn’t you say that you closed yourself off emotionally for a really long time?”
“I did,” the elf agreed. “Though not completely- I still had your Grandma and Grandpa, and I still had my friends in the company. But yes, I was pretty sealed off for a long time. So then… what changed?”
Sieg’s eyes widened. “Mama?”
Belial grinned, ruffling his son’s hair. “Exactly so. When you carve out a piece of your own heart, you can’t replace it by yourself. Evil people numb that void so they don’t have to feel the pain of it. But the only way it can really become whole again, really heal, is if someone else who’s heart is whole and undamaged comes along and puts a part of themselves in that fragile opening- and for the person who’s heart is damaged to let them. Love, Sieg. Love is the opposite to, and the cure for, evil.”
The half-elf sighed, an expression of tired patience on his face. “How does it always come back to love with you, Papa?”
Belial laughed. “It’s a stronger force than you give it credit for, my little raven. Now, you feeling any better?”
“Yeah, some,” Sieg said with a rueful smile. “Sorry for kicking over the chair. And yelling.”
“Apology accepted. Now since your mama has apparently been dealing with obnoxious customers today, how about you and I fix her something nice for when she gets home? I have all the things we’d need for some sals, or maybe cheese tarts if you feel like getting the oven outside going.”
“Sals would probably be more fun,” the half-elf said, brightening considerably. “She won’t smell it from up the road, so it’ll be more of a surprise.”
“That settles that then- come on little raven, let’s get cooking.” SmashedFor a fifteen year old half-elf who’d been raised in a city of elves, it was always strange to contrast his home with the nearby human village of Kolanth. Nid’aigle was a heavily forested city built around a wide river, with plans overgrowing the houses so that from above they might have looked like flowery hills. There were very few places where blue sky was visible except in the winter, with the dense canopy casting a slightly greenish hue on everything in Nid’aigle. The human village, on the other hand, was in a part of the forest that had been deliberately cleared away to make room for buildings and pasture for livestock. The houses were crude, brown and red constructs of wood and clay with narrow winding streets between them and very little shrubbery or wild plant growth.
Sieg Braham probably would have been within his rights to call Kolanth ugly- but he didn’t really think it was. Just different, in the same way his human mother and elven father were different. Humans lived very short lives, breeding and spreading very quickly, so they viewed the world as a thing to tame and conquer. Elves lived for centuries, having very few children, and so they lived in balance and harmony with the natural world. As a halfblood, Sieg always did his best to understand both sides of the spectrum, and his parents had taken care to immerse him in both human and elvish culture while he was growing up.
As he got older, Sieg found himself leaning further and further towards the human half of his heritage, at least in terms of how he thought about and reacted to the world. It wasn't a conscious decision, granted, but his instincts and inclinations were distinctly un-elvish and he occasionally found this fact getting him into trouble with the pureblood elves- especially when it came to the very human mood swings of adolescence.
He’d been a very bright, cheery child, and in general he was still possessed of a sunny disposition as a teenager, but like any human his age he was prone to fits of temper or moroseness at the slightest provocation- and on occasion for seemingly no reason at all. The elves had little patience for his moodiness, and it came to a head one morning in late April, when his father was away on one of his usual knightly missions.
Talking to his calm, reasonable father always seemed to help Sieg when he was in a foul mood. He didn’t really know why, but Belial was just very good at isolating the source of his son’s distress and consoling him on whatever the issue happened to be. But when Belial was gone, more often than not Sieg had no outlet for his frustrations save his mother and sister, who he loved with all his heart, but had a tendency to approach any given problem with a joke or twelve, which only made his irritability worse when he desperately wanted someone to take him seriously.
This particular day was good example of just that trend. Ever since the two years Belial had been away during the Second Langian War, Sieg had felt a profound frustration whenever his father left on a mission. He was learning himself about knighthood and what all it entailed, and the trips he’d taken for granted during his entire childhood had become frightening and dangerous, every departure possibly the last time he’d see his father. All he’d really been after was a bit of sympathy from his sister Ophelia- he knew she hated when their father left as much as he did. But unlike her brother, she was much better at distracting herself and keeping busy, and didn’t want to dwell on the uncomfortable topic of their father’s absence. What had started out as a simple trip to one of Nid’aigle’s beautiful bridges had turned into a humiliatingly public argument. Finally, one of the elves passing on the bridge seemed to decide the usual elvish tendency to ignore things that were not explicitly their business, and politely but coldly inform both of the “half-breeds” that their “uncivilized discourse” had no place in the elf city.
At least having someone they could mutually be angry with for interrupting them and insulting their hybrid heritage had redirected the anger of both the half-elves, and once they’d left the bridge they were quick to apologize to each other. But Sieg was still in a dismal mood, and decided that the best course of action was probably to go for a ride away from the rest of the city so he could stew on his frustrations alone.
So wrapped up was he in his thoughts that he didn’t really even pay attention to where Nuage was ambling. By the time he came back to awareness, he realized that he was halfway down the road to the human village. Sieg couldn’t remember a time he’d ever been in Kolanth alone before. He usually went to the human town in the company of his mother when she was headed to the market, or one of his instructors when they were taking him out for a field exercise as part of his page training. But… maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad place to go. Humans were more accustomed to teenagers being inexplicably moody, and no one here knew him all that well.
He eventually stopped in front of the local tavern, at a loss of where else to go, and tied Nuage to the horse post out front. Then, he walked into the building.
Even this early in the afternoon the place was fairly crowded. Sieg glanced around, unsure where to sit, but eventually he settled at a small table near one of the windows. A few minutes later, the tavern keeper approached him.
“Hey, what’ll it be kid?” he asked amiably, looking over his notepad at the boy. When Sieg looked up and met his eyes, the man did a double-take, and his glance snapped to the teenager’s ears. A crooked smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Ah, young Master Braham. It’s been a while since I’ve seen your mother or father in here, they used to be regulars. Tell them I said hello when you see them, eh?”
“Ah… s-sure,” he replied, a little caught by surprise. His parents used to regularly patron a bar? His parents? Well Mama he could see, but Belial…
Shaking the feeling off, he said, “I’ll just have a small beer for now.”
“Sure thing,” the tavern keeper replied, writing this down and heading back to the bar.
The man brought Sieg his drink, and the young half-elf sipped from it absently as he watched the town out the window. Sooner or later he'd have to go back, but he was old enough that it wasn't such a big deal if he was out by himself a little late. His parents usually respected his desire for space, and gave ti to him as long as he didn't get into trouble.
There was a creak as the door was pushed open, and Sieg glanced around to see two human boys a little older than him come into the tavern. They ordered some drinks from the bar, and to his surprise after glancing around a bit one of them pointed to him, and the both approached his table.
“Hey, you're that half-elf boy aren't you?” one of them asked. “The locksmith's kid?”
Long accustomed to this question, Sieg bit back a sigh and smiled politely. “Yes, that's me. My name is Sieg.”
“I'm Dale,” said the boy who had spoken, a young man with firey ginger hair. He gestured to his companion, a brunette. “And my friend is Barry. You mind if we sit with you? Or are you waiting on someone?”
Sieg was surprised at the request, but gestured at the chairs dismissively. “By all means, I'm not waiting for anybody. But why?”
“You look like you could use some company,” Barry said cheerfully. “No one comes into a bar by himself except to mope. And besides, I bet it's cool, living in the elf city.”
The half-elf smiled shyly. “Sometimes it is, though it can be a little stressful too. The elves are a bit stubborn and a lot of them don't like humans. Or half-humans. But ah, thank you for your kindness.”
“A polite one, aren't you?” Barry asked.
“It's an elf thing,” Sieg said with a laugh.
“So,” Dale said as the two of them sat down. “What were you doing in here by yourself? Girlfriend dump you or something?”
“Wha- no, no, nothing like that!” Sieg stammered, his face turning a brilliant scarlet. “I don't have a girlfriend. I was just in here because I happened to wander this way. I wasn't doing anything really, just killing some time.”
“That sounds pretty boring,” Dale said. “You wanna hang with us? We were just going to throw back some mugs and make a night of it.”
“Make a night of it?” Sieg repeated. “You mean get drunk? I... I don't know, my mother will be expecting me back home tonight and it'll get dark soon.”
“It's your call, man,” Dale said with a shrug. “But when we saw you over here brooding you looked like you could use a bit of fun. Besides you're what, fifteen, sixteen? You're old enough you shouldn't have to run home to your mom as soon as it gets dark out.”
The half-elf had to admit, the notion was tempting. Dale and Barry were being far more friendly than the elves in Nid'aigle generally were, and the few times Sieg had seen someone drinking they'd seemed to be enjoying themselves. But he was supposed to be behaving with discipline now that he was a page, and he really didn't want his mother or Ophelia to worry...
“Maybe just a little,” he said finally, with a lopsided grin. “I think I could use a bit of fun, but I really don't want to be too wasted to get back home later. Just... I don't really have much money with me.”
“No problem, here you can have mine,” Barry said cheerfully, passing a mug of ale to the half-elf. “I'll get another. Cheers!”
Sieg looked down at the mug a little apprehensively, but he found that he was grinning and shivering a little with excitement. He knew this probably wasn't a smart idea, but he was just... so fed up with having to be well behaved and formal and in control all the time. He wanted to have fun, and make friends, and just... be a teenager once in a while. A teenager like his humanity wanted him to be, not like the elven culture expected him to be. Quashing the last of his apprehension, he tilted the mug back and gulped down several huge mouthfuls of the alcoholic beverage.
He nearly gagged on it- the booze burned his tongue and throat like liquid fire, and the mead itself was cloyingly sweet. As he coughed and gagged, Dale gave an exuberant laugh.
“Well you don't waste time do you? I like your spirit, Sieg, you're funny.”
The half-elf gave a slightly breathless laugh. “Happy to be a source of entertainment. Great Woo, that was not what I was expecting.”
“Bit of a kick in the pants, but you'll develop a taste for it,” Barry put in, resuming his seat. “So then, what where you in here for anyway? You said you were killing time or something?”
“Oh, that,” Sieg shrugged, shaking the mug of mead in his hands so that the liquid inside swirled around. “I wish I could say it was something important or serious, but I was just kind of in a bad mood. I've been having a hard time keeping my emotions in check since I turned thirteen, and it keeps getting worse.”
“That's being a teenager for you,” Dale replied with a shrug. “I know that feel, man. All the more reason for a little fun, eh?”
“I suppose so,” Sieg agreed with a smile, and he took another long gulp of the mug. “This stuff is really sweet.”
“It's made from honey,” Barry explained. “I like it for the taste. Dale prefers beer, the philistine.”
“Nothing wrong with beer,” Dale replied loftily. Sieg grinned.
“Except that it looks and smells like goat pee,” the half-elf said teasingly, earning a playful swat from the ginger haired boy. He took another gulp of the sweet beverage. It was pretty good actually. He downed the rest of it, pushing the mug aside to continue his conversation with Barry and Dale.
Sieg became aware of a strange tingling spreading from the tip of his nose. Surprised, he reached up to his nose. “My… my face feels funny,” he said, earning a chuckle from Dale.
“That’s good, it means the stuff is starting to work,” he replied. “Though you’re a bit of a lightweight if you’re already starting to feel a buzz off of one mug of mead.”
Sieg blushed, looking down at the wooden vessel. “I’ve never had real alcohol before.”
“Then you’re in for some fun,” Barry said with a grin. “C’mon, you can’t stop at just one, here.”
He casually took Sieg’s tankard back up to the bar to have it refilled, and presented it again to the half-elf. Sieg could see both of the human boys were also drinking heartily and, not wanting to be outdone, he too tilted the mug back and took several gulps of the liquor. It again seared its way down his throat, but this time instead of abating the fire left his entire body feeling pleasantly warm and light.
“This is… weird, but I think I like it,” he said, earning a slap on the shoulder from Dale.
“Told ya that you would,” he said triumphantly. “People drink for a reason, it’s fun. Well humans do, I guess elves are too formal and stuffy.”
“Well actually elves do drink,” Sieg said with a shrug. “Just not as often. It’s only for special occasions, festivals and things like that.”
He drank some more of the mead, enjoying the floaty feeling that overtaking him. “It does get tiring sometimes though,” he admitted. “The politeness thing. It’s like that all the time. Sometimes I just want to do things. Not stiff formal-things. But I can’t because I don’t want them to judge me or thing being half human makes me rude and impolite.”
“Rude and impolite are the same thing bro,” Barry remarked with a snigger. Sieg blinked, and then laughed.
“I guess they are. I’m… My head feels like it’s drifting. This stuff is strong.”
“It is, but you’re also a lightweight,” Dale repeated. “That’s fine though, makes this cheaper.”
Sieg laughed again, covering his mouth as he did so. He didn’t know why, but that casual remark was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. He took another big gulp of the mead, and realized he’d reached the bottom of his tankard again.
“I’m going through this pretty fast,” he said, surprised.
“Yeah you are,” Barry said with a smirk. “And you’re already tipsy without giving it time to get into your system. Give it another half hour and it’ll really hit you.”
The half-elf chuckled. “'Pit. I meant not to drink too much. My mom’s going to kill me.”
“C’mon man, you’re fifteen, in another year or so you’ll be legal to get married if you want,” Dale said with a dismissive hand wave. “Don’t worry about the elves or your mom, just do what you want. Have some fun.”
“Yeah,” Sieg said, a look of fierce determination coming across his face. “Yeah, you’re right. I can be whoever I want. I’m not an elf, I’m a half-elf, and I can do things like a human if I want. I don’t have to live up to their stupid impossible standards, I… I can, but I don’t have to, but I can, I could if it weren’t stupid. I could be a good elf.”
He clutched his hands around the empty tankard. “They're so stupid sometimes. It's like, I can't help being half-human, but they judge me for it anyway. I have to be perfect all the time, or they're tutting about it and saying things like 'blood will tell.'”
“Sounds rough,” Barry said sympathetically, patting Sieg on the shoulder. “But don't worry about them right now, just enjoy yourself.”
Sieg lifted the mug, intending to take another drink out of it, but realized only after he'd tipped it back that it was, in fact, still empty. He laughed again, setting it down and pushing it away.
“You are gone, Sieg,” Dale said with a wide smirk. “I can not believe how gone you already are.”
“I feel fine,” he objected. “Great even. Just, kind of fuzzy-headed. Like there's cotton in my ears or something.”
“Give it time, it's coming,” Barry said with a snigger.
“I said I'm okay,” Sieg said plaintively. “Why don't you believe me?”
“Because your'e not,” Barry said bluntly. Sieg frowned, looking down at his hands. Why were they doing this? His new friends were laughing at him, teasing him, why were they doing that? He was fine, yes he was getting a little buzzed but he still felt great. Only not so great, because now he was starting to feel like he'd done something wrong.
“I'm okay, and I'll prove it,” he said firmly. “More. I'll drink more.”
“Are you serious?” Dale asked incredulously. “You've already had two in the last twenty minutes.”
“I can handle it,” Sieg insisted. Barry and Dale exchanged an amused glance, then Dale shrugged. “Alright man, your call.”
He took the tankard and went back up to the bar, returning with it a few minutes later. “I think this'll be it for you for a while though, you really don't want to get carried away.”
“I'm fine,” Sieg snapped, and as evidence of this he drank fully half the tankard in one go. The light, fuzzy feeling in his head was starting to give way to a rocking sensation, as if the entire room were swaying back and forth.
“You've got determination, I'll give you that much,” Barry said. His face was only just starting to flush a bit, and his eyes were glazing, but his speech was clear and he seemed mostly fine otherwise. Sieg wanted to tear his hair out. What was he doing wrong?
“I don't get it,” he said softly, looking down at the mug. “I try to do elf things and they tell me I'm as ill-mannered as a human, and then I try to do human things but I'm... I'm a lightweight and I can't.”
“It's fine, just go with it,” Dale said, grinning, but Sieg shook his head.
“I was lying, it's not fine,” he replied thickly, his shoulders quivering. “I'm no good at anything, I just, I'm pathetic. I get people hurt and lose my temper over stupid things, and I just want to be strong, to be worth something, but I'm, I can't, I'm a loser.”
“Woo above, calm down man,” Barry said, giving Sieg a companionable hug. “You're cool, I mean sure you're a lightweight but lots of people are. Nothing wrong with that, just means you're a cheap buzz.”
Sieg moaned softly, putting his face in Barry's shoulder as tears started to flow from his eyes. “You're too nice to me. I'm just a pathetic, stupid kid, and I'll never amount to anything because I'm not human and I'm not an elf and I'm just nothing. I'm a, a something I don't know what, and it's just sad and empty.”
“Barry, I think this might have been a mistake,” Dale said softly, glancing up at his friend. Sieg, overhearing this, jerked away from them, stumbling to his feet and almost toppling over backwards.
“I'm sorry, I'll go I'm sorry. I, I'll leave you alone, this was stupid. I'm worthless and weak and, and I...”
He whimpered, taking another step back and slipping so that Dale had to lurch up and catch him. Sieg moaned, not even trying to right himself. That pleasant feeling was gone, and instead he just felt dizzy and confused.
Things had started out so fun. He was making friends and having a good time. Where did he go wrong? Why did things always turn out like this?
Hanging limp in Dale's arms, the half-elf started to cry.
* * * * *
It was a few hours before the tavern keeper was able to send a runner to Nid'aigle to inform Morgaine of where her son had wandered off to. By the time she reached Kolanth, Sieg had passed out entirely, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders by the tavern keeper. She knelt down in front of him and winced a bit. His breath smelled of wine, and his eyes were red and puffy from weeping. The locksmith had been angry and frantic, but seeing him as he was now... she felt he'd probably been sufficiently punished for his poor decision-making that lecturing him would be moot at this point.
Giving his shoulder a gentle shake she called, “Sieg?”
He stirred, opening his eyes blearily. It was obvious there was still some alcohol in his system, because his eyes were glazed and he swayed a bit in the chair as he looked at her.
“Mama?” he muttered. Then he flinched in on himself. “I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was stupid and I-”
“Hush,” Morgaine replied softly, running her fingers through the half-elf's hair. “I already heard the whole story. Never would have figured my bright, sunny young brat for a weepy drunk though, I must admit.”
“Sorry,” he muttered again, leaning his eyes against her shoulder. She rubbed his spine soothingly, and felt him relax into her arms.
“I don't think you're in any fit state to make it back home tonight,” she remarked dryly. “We can stay at the inn for tonight. Sieg, love, if you wanted to try drinking you didn't have to go behind my back to do it. I'd have gladly brought you here and helped you do it in a controlled manner so it didn't spiral out of hand like this.”
He whimpered, shoving his face further into her shirt. "I'm no good at anything, I can't do anything right."
She sighed. “Sieg, alcohol makes fools out of all of us. And there's this; no matter what the elves or anyone else might think, I will always love you. You don't have to feel pathetic or inferior or angry with me, alright?”
“I know,” he hiccuped. “I love you Mama. And I'm sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” she said sternly. “C'mon, let's get you cleaned up.”
First LoveIt was a crisp late-autumn day in the village of Kolanth. Morgaine Braham adjusted the shawl she was wearing around her shoulders with a shiver- soon it would be winter, and most business would have to be conducted in the afternoon when the sun had sufficiently warmed things up. Almost nothing was done outdoors in the early mornings during winter, when it could and often was a full ten degrees or more cooler than it would be later in the day- Corvid winters were very peculiar that way.
Morgaine felt a soft bump on her arm, and looked around to see her thirteen year old daughter, Ophelia, press against her with a shiver. “I don’t know how the people in the northern regions stand the cold,” she complained quietly to her mother. “Nor why you should want to go somewhere it gets cold enough to snow in winter. I can’t even stand our temperature drops.”
The locksmith laughed, bumping her head against the teenager’s shoulder (in spite of being only thirteen, Ophelia was already taller than her mother’s four-foot-six) and gesturing out over the market square of Kolanth. “Change of scenery, more than anything. When you see the same few things all the time it gets terribly dull. I like to see and experience as much as I can, it makes life more interesting. Though I will admit your brother’s constant shenanigans do good job of keeping me on my toes.”
Ophelia chuckled at the mention of her brother Sieg. In the past few years he’d turned into an absolute clown. Morgaine often thought, as much of a showman as he was turning into, he would have been absolutely perfect in the minstrel career he’d originally wanted for himself. But he was firmly on the path to knighthood now, and in the coming spring he’d take his tests to be promoted from page to squire- something he couldn’t wait for.
Her daughter, on the other hand, still wasn’t sure what path she wanted to take in life. Ophelia was clever, loved reading and learning, and though she had a tendency towards being rather more blunt about her opinions than was prudent she was very easy to like. Morgaine knew the young half-elven girl would go wonderful places when she was older. But for now Ophelia was content to spend her free time helping her mother around the shop in Nid’aigle and the market stall in Kolanth, and Morgaine was not in the least averse to having the help.
“Excuse me?” a soft, male voice said, and Morgaine looked up to see a brown haired boy who looked to be about fifteen or so standing in front of the stall. “Are you Mistress Braham, the locksmith?”
“I most certainly am,” Morgaine replied genially, standing up. “What can I do for you, young sir?”
He coughed softly. “My dad runs the tavern in town, he, ah… he said you know him?”
The locksmith laughed outright at this. “Oh yes, he and I go way back. What’s the man need from me then? He knows I’m dry now, so I hope he wasn’t trying to lure me back into old habits.”
The young boy flushed a bit, the look in his pale green eyes distinctly uncomfortable. “W-well a thief broke into the tavern through one of our windows and stole a lot of our best vintages, so he wants to have a lock put on the inside of all the windows so it doesn’t happen again.”
“Ah, I see,” Morgaine said amiably. “I’m sorry to hear about the theft, but your request sounds simple enough. Is there a time that’s good for me to meet with him to discuss the terms? I can swing by today after market’s done if he’s free.”
“That sounds wonderful, thank you Mistress Braham,” the boy said, bowing his head to her. “I hope your business is good.”
“Thanks; good day to you as well!” she called after him as he fled. Turning to her daughter she said, “Can you write down on that slate that we need to stop at the tavern before we leave town? I don’t want to for… Ophelia?”
Morgaine realized only belatedly that the half-elf didn’t seem to be paying her any mind. Ophelia was still watching the young man as he trotted out of the square, a rather distant look in her sapphire blue eyes. The locksmith cleared her throat noisily, startling her daughter out of whatever daze she was in.
“Oh, uh, sorry Mama, what were you saying?” she asked. Morgaine quirked an amused eyebrow.
“I was asking you to make note of the fact that we have a window commission to settle before we leave town,” she repeated. Then, switching to Elvish so that none of the people in the square except Ophelia would understand, she added, “He’s a cute kid.”
Ophelia’s cheeks went scarlet. “Mother!” she exclaimed in the same language. “I’m not… I-I wasn’t…”
“Of course you weren’t,” Morgaine interrupted, amused. “You were just thinking of all the nice money his daddy is going to pay us for fixing those windows, right? That’s why you were staring at his back like Mercury stares at a whole, uncooked trout?”
The half-elf blushed even harder. Covering her face, she muttered, “Alright, fine. He’s cute. I said it, are you happy? It’s not the first time I’ve seen him in town, but I just… I don’t know what I’d even say to him. I mean, he’s a human and I’m a half-elf, and I’m only thirteen I’d look like a child to him.”
Morgaine shrugged, a bemused look on her face. “Crushes happen when you’re a teenager, Ophee. It’s up to you what you want to do about it. But I personally wouldn’t sweat the half-elf thing. If you spend your entire life being self-conscious about that, you’re never going to work up the courage to talk to any of the guys you like.”
The young girl sighed. “Have I mentioned I hate it when you’re right?”
“A time or two,” the locksmith said with a wink. “Honestly Ophelia, yes you’re half elf, but you’re also half human. If you want to ask the kid out, ask him out. But I probably would at least wait until your birthday, thirteen is a bit young for this kind of thing.”
Ophelia made a sound that was half laugh, half moan. “My birthday isn’t for another five months, Mama!”
Morgaine smirked. “Tough cookies. Now, if you could write that note for me?”
* * * * *
The rest of the day passed without much incident, and at the end of it Morgaine put all of her supplies away in the back she’d brought along. Once she’d finished packing up, the locksmith and her daughter set off towards the tavern so that Morgaine could finalize the details of the window job. Ophelia was clearly fidgety about going to the tavern and possibly seeing the cute boy again, which Morgaine found endlessly entertaining.
When finally the two of them arrived, Morgaine found the tavern keeper waiting eagerly to receive her.
“Morgaine!” he said cheerfully. “By Woo, I ain’t seen ye since that boy o’ yours was down here back in April. And it was even longer before that- ye needn’t be such a stranger ye know.”
“Aye, but being a merchant and a mother keeps me busy,” the locksmith replied with a grin. “So how about that window of yours?”
As her mother followed the tavern keeper into the back of the store, Ophelia leaned back against the bar, fiddling absently with her braid. Fortunately she and her family were a common enough sight in Kolanth that the people didn’t stare at her for her pointed ears or glimmering eyes anymore, but she still felt somewhat self-conscious. Especially since she could see the tavern keeper’s son sitting at a table by himself, appearing not to be doing anything in particular.
Well she couldn’t ask him out yet, but maybe… maybe she could at least talk to him. He was right there after all, and he seemed nice enough. What was the harm in just walking over to him and saying hi?
She dithered for a few moments more before finally deciding she was going to do it. Taking a deep breath, the half-elf forced herself to toss the braid behind her head, smile, and walk towards the table on the other end of the room where the boy was sitting. She’d made it halfway across the room, when the door of the tavern opened and the boy’s head snapped up. A wide grin split his face, and he stood to greet the person who’d just come in.
“Layla!” he called, picking her up in a hug and swinging her around. “I was worried you wouldn’t make it.”
“Sorry, I got held up at home,” the girl replied, kissing him on the cheek. “You know how daddy is.”
The two of them lingered in the doorway for a few minutes more, before leaving the tavern together- through it all Ophelia remained frozen on the spot where she’d stopped walking, halfway between the bar and the table where the boy had been sitting.
He has a girlfriend.
Ophelia was trembling. She had been afraid of so many possible eventualities that might come from making a try with the boy, but this was not something she’d considered.
Well… well maybe if they split up eventually I-
That was a painfully selfish thought, and Ophelia wanted to smack herself as soon as it crossed her mind. She was not some petty, flighty little airhead to become obsessed with jealousy. She didn’t even know this boy’s name. It wasn’t a big deal.
So why did she feel like she wanted to cry?
The sound of a door creaking open and then rattling shut startled her out of her stupor. “Well, that’s settled,” Morgaine said cheerfully, coming back into the common room. “I’ll be coming back in about two days time to finish up here. For now let’s head… Ophee?”
The woman seemed to notice her daughter’s quivering, and Morgaine’s brown eyes darkened with concern. When the half-elf didn’t respond, Morgaine hesitantly put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Ophelia, is something wrong?”
The girl shook her head. “N-not here,” she said softly. “Let’s just… let’s just go home.”
The locksmith frowned, but nodded. Wordlessly, she and her daughter headed out of the tavern and took the road that would lead them out of Kolanth and back home to Nid’aigle.
As the chatter of the human town faded into silence behind them, Ophelia looked down at her mother. “Mama… Papa once told me that he spent three-hundred years alone before he met you. And… and that’s not uncommon, for elves.”
“Well, yes,” Morgaine replied, looking up at her daughter in confusion. “As long as they live, they feel no rush to get into a relationship before they’re good and ready for it.”
“Yeah, but,” the girl said, “I… don’t feel that way. Maybe it’s because I’m part human, but I think about the future and I don’t… I don’t…”
She swallowed hard, hugging herself around the shoulders, whispering hoarsely. “I don’t want to be alone for hundreds of years, Mama.”
The human woman immediately drew Ophelia into a hug, sympathy crashing over her. It was always an uncertainty with her children, which traits they would take from their father and which from their mother. The locksmith knew they’d grown up painfully starved for the company of other children, living in the elf city, but the idea that they might spend centuries that lonely broke Morgaine’s heart.
“You’re a beautiful, intelligent young woman,” she said softly, holding Ophelia close. “I know you’ll find the right person for you. I know you will. In all the wide world there can’t possibly not be someone who would love a girl as special as you are.”
Ophelia didn’t reply. But she held her mother as tightly as Morgaine was holding her, and prayed with all her heard that the locksmith was right. Waning HoursIn this story, dialogue that is in green is Kythian. The rest is in Elvish.
Sieg flicked a small, shiny token back and forth between his fingers. “C’mon, Phee. I leave in just under an hour. If you wanna learn the coin trick, this’ll be your last chance to beg me about it for another week at least.”
Ophelia glanced at her brother over the book she was reading, quirking an eyebrow. “Oh really? What a shame. A whole week without you showing off all those useless conman stunts you picked up from the humans in the bar last year. However will I fill those long, empty hours?”
Sieg sighed with exasperation. It felt like every year Ophelia became more and more like their mother. Only more impatient, if that was even possible.
“You’re a stick in the mud. All the time. Seriously Phee, why do you have to be such a jerk?”
She smirked, “Because if I wasn’t, your sorry butt would be in trouble constantly. I have to be the voice of common sense, seeing as you haven’t got any.”
The boy winced. “I’ve gotten better about that, you know.”
“I know,” Ophelia acknowledged. “But old habits die hard. Besides, driving you nuts is my job. It’s the first rule in the sibling handbook.”
Sieg snorted. “I love you too, brat.”
He was forced to duck as Ophelia swung her book at him.
“Now, now, behave children.” The siblings looked up to see that their mother had come into the room. She quirked an eyebrow at her daughter. “The company needs Sieg in one piece for the coming action, deary. Please try not to give him any injuries before he has time to so much as saddle up.”
“Sorry, Mama,” the half-elven girl replied. “But in my defense, he sort of deserves to be hit.”
“No one is denying that,” Morgaine replied with a grin. “But save it for after he gets home, alright.”
“Now you’re all just ganging up on me,” Sieg said sulkily. Adopting the formal elven speech that he almost never used in private with his family, he added, “I am to be a knight of the realm, and that being so I should think you would afford me more respe- Ow!”
Ophelia had swatted him with the book again, prompting Sieg to retaliate with an unmerciful tickle attack to her neck. The girl whooped involuntarily, squirming as she tried vainly to get away from her brother. They carried on like that for a good five minutes before Morgaine was able to stop laughing and intervene.
“Alright, alright, enough. Sieg you need to change into your armor, you and your father are expected at the field very soon now. You don’t want to start your career as a squire off by being late for your first real engagement- a tardy knight costs lives, as the saying goes.”
Sieg backed away from Ophelia, a sheepish grin on his face. “You’re right, sorry Mama. Tell Papa I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
As Morgaine left the room, Ophelia glanced sideways at her brother. “Are you really sure that this is what you want?”
“I’ve already spent four years training as a page to get this far, Phee- it’s a bit late to back out, wouldn’t you say?”
“Until you take your oaths as a knight, no,” she replied reasonably. Her brother sighed.
“I’m sure about this Phee, trust me. I want to be strong, like Papa is. I want to protect Nid’aigle. I want to protect our family. I don’t want to be that stupid kid that can’t even save his own sister when he provokes a bear into attacking her.”
“I provoked the bear, Sieg,” she pointed out. “And there’s no shame in not being a warrior. If everyone could protect themselves we wouldn’t need knights in the first place.”
“I know, but I want to be a warrior. I’ll protect you, and Mama, and I’ll fight at Papa’s side so he doesn’t have to risk his life for us alone. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I know it’s the right thing to do.”
Ophelia shook her head, “You’re too stubborn for your own good. But if you were any other way, you wouldn’t be the bone-headed brother I love to hate.”
He shook his head with a grin, and went to get changed into his armor.
When finally Sieg arrived in front of the house, he found that not only was his family waiting for him, but so was Sir Gavin, the elf that was his knight-master. Sieg bowed politely to Gavin, adopting the formal elvin mode of speech more seriously now. “Forgive my sloth, Master Gavin. I had not meant to tarry.”
Gavin waved a hand in silent acceptance of the apology. Belial put a hand to his face, trying and failing to hide an amused smile.
“Papa,” Ophelia said softly in Kythian, knowing Gavin did not speak it, “Sieg is an idiot, but he’s our idiot. Make sure he comes home safe, alright?”
Belial chuckled openly now, brushing his daughter’s long black hair out of her eyes. “I shall endeavour to bring him back to you in one piece. After all, without him who should you and your mother have to scold?”
Sieg gave a huff of annoyance as Morgaine and Ophelia laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Papa.”
“I have every confidence in you, my young raven,” Belial said in elvish, not caring if Gavin understood this part of the conversation. “I have watched these past sixteen years as you shed your down and fledged- I very much look forward to watching you fly.”
The young boy flushed, grinning sheepishly. “You’re so corny. But thanks.”
“Come,” Gavin said, gentle but firm. “I understand that young Squire Braham would wish to linger over his goodbyes- this is his first action and it is only natural- but we really mustn't tarry.”
“Aye,” Belial agreed. “Every moment wasted costs more lives.”
“Be safe, love,” Morgaine said, grabbing Belial’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “And watch over our son.”
Belial squeezed her hand back, and gave his wife a gentle kiss. While normally Morgaine accompanied him on his missions, this one had been deemed far too dangerous for civilians to come along. She would be remaining behind with Ophelia, much as it frustrated her.
Then he pulled away, and mounted his gelding. “Let’s go, Sieg. We have a rogue dragon to slay.” Fault and BlameIn this story, dialogue that is in green is Kythian. The rest is in Elvish.
As soon as the knights arrived back in Nid’aigle, it was clear that something had happened. They were silent and somber, a sizeable number of them swathed in bandages or lying on slings between two horses. And most telling of all was their formation- all of the able-bodied knights were riding in a circle around the commanding officer, who has holding a black cloth in her arms.
That formation meant the worst possible news; a knight had died during the mission. The black cloth was symbolic, intended to hold something of the knight that could be returned to their loved ones, so that their soul might be guided home.
All of the relatives of the returning knights were siphoned to the front of the crowd; this too, was tradition. The family of the fallen had to be informed first, and the returning knights would go to them directly before doing anything else. A hundred pale elven faces watched, not daring to show a jot of emotion as the circle parted and the captain rode forwards with the black cloth.
But she did not approach any of the elves. She rode directly for the single, darker human face in the crowd. Morgaine’s mouth went dry, and she began to shiver.
“No,” she whispered hoarsely, feeling Ophelia’s hands tighten on her shoulders. “No, please…”
With a world of sympathy in her eyes, the captain unfolded the black cloth. There, blackened and half-melted, was a small circlet of white-gold. Belial’s wedding ring.
Morgaine stared at it without comprehension for a full minute. Then she fell to her knees.
* * * * *
Ophelia was walking down the hallway towards where her injured brother was being kept, when the sound of a crash sent a jolt of terror through her. She bolted towards Sieg’s room, throwing the door open just in time to see two knights holding her badly burned brother down on his bed as a mage tried to extricate himself from where he’d apparently fallen into a shelf.
“Keep back your healing touch!” Sieg shrieked at the mage, seemingly oblivious to the knights pinning him. “I’ll have it not!”
“Sieg!” Gavin shouted. “This display is foolish, and it moots nothing! This healer is not the one that killed your father!”
The squire shook his head jerkily. “It’s not for his sake I reject treatment.”
“Then who’s?” Ophelia demanded, making the occupants of the room start. “Sieg, what is going on here?”
Her brother flinched, refusing to meet her eyes. “I killed him.”
“What? That is nonsense, the dragon killed him! We heard it from a mage who watched!”
“It wasn’t my hand that did the deed, but it was by my incompetence,” he spat. “He protected me, and in so doing he drew the dragon’s wrath unto himself. He… he’s dead, Phee. Because I was so cursed determined to prove my own worth. He’s dead because of me.”
Tears began to stream down Sieg’s face.
“All my foolish, selfish pride needs be stripped from me. Henceforth I will suffer whatever pain my life offers, and wear my sins as scars upon my flesh. It cannot ever be compared to the pain he surely felt as he was dying, to the pain my mother suffers as her heart is ripped in twain.”
“Sieg, those burns could kill you,” Gavin said softly. “Especially if they get infected. Would you condemn your mother to the pain of losing a loved one twice?”
“I won’t die,” he answered scathingly. “I can’t die- not until I fix this. I…” he choked. “I killed my own father. I d-destroyed my family. I can’t die, not unt-til I atone for this t-travesty.”
“Sieg, please,” Ophelia begged, her own face stained with tears, “Stop talking like this. Mama is grieving, but she would not want you to destroy yourself for her sake. Nor would Papa. Th-they would want to see you smile, and be happy. So… so let the healer fix you. And be happy. Please.”
Sieg shook his head, but it was a token gesture. His body had gone limp with defeat, and when the knights released him he sagged into the pillow behind his back.
“I… I cannot accept a healing. Th-this, I will not assent to, not now and not ever again. B-but you are right, I shouldn’t distress Mother…”
Something about the way he said that unnerved Ophelia. His voice was utterly hollow, as if all the spirit and mischief of the brother she loved had been burned away by the fires of the battle. Then he turned to her, and a chill threaded down her spine at the expression on his face.
“I’ll… I’ll wear long sleeves to hide the scars. They should be my burden, and no one else’s. And… and I will be happy. For her. For you. I’ll a-always be ha-happy.”
Ophelia turned away, trying hard to swallow the lump in her throat. She couldn’t stand it, that look on his face.
For under the hollow, broken, pain filled eyes, he was smiling.
The Chains of CommandThere was a soft click at the office door of Commander Anri Hasek of Nid’aigle. The elf woman looked up from the paperwork on her desk to see her second in command, Lieutenant Gavin Monfort, enter the room.
“Report,” she intoned habitually, though her voice was low and hollow in a way that did not invite the normal military formalities. Certainly Gavin did not indulge them. Though he stood in the military at-ease position, he did not salute his commander, and there was no mistaking the anger in voice as he spoke.
“Squire Sieg is asleep- finally. The pain from his injuries was such that we had to drug his food to finally knock him out so the healers could work on him without him lashing out against them.”
Anri rubbed her face. “Perhaps once his mother has emerged from her seclusion she can talk him around. This cannot continue, those burns will kill him if he doesn’t allow the healers to work on them.”
“He insists otherwise,” Gavin replied, refusing to meet Anri’s eyes. “He says that he will not permit himself to die until he atones for bringing about his father’s death.”
The commander’s mouth tightened. She’d known the moment she read the dispatch from House Jade that this mission would result in heavy casualties. How could it not? Dragons were the most fearsome creatures on the planet, and an insane man-eating dragon was even more dangerous than normal because it would not stop at merely driving off an interloper. But she had never dreamed it would get this bad. Fully half the group that had been sent to confront the dragon were pinned down at the healers, covered in horrific burns after being immolated by it’s flame breath or trapped by a barn explosion it had set off. Even those who had gotten off the most lightly still had injuries that needed tending, but had yet to be addressed in the rush to treat the worse hurt. Anri was nursing several broken ribs from a bit of flying debris that hit her after the barn explosion, and her skin was pink and peeling where the ambient heat in the air from the fire all around had burned her. Gavin was no better off, having been on the front lines of the fight. He too was burnt, and leaning on a crutch because one leg had been gashed by the dragon’s scales when it tried to swat him away.
The company been fortunate to get off with just one fatality. They had not been fortunate in whom the fallen knight had been; Sir Belial Braham, the corporal in command of Nid’aigle Squad 5. To lose an officer was in and of itself a travesty- it took a very particular sort of elf to be a military leader, given their dislike of violence as a race. But the loss of this officer in particular had been compounded by the fact that his sixteen year old son, Squire Sieg Braham, had been present at the battle and personally witnessed his death.
“Why, Anri?” Gavin said, dropping all pretense of talking to her as his commander and speaking bluntly. “Why did you do this? I asked you not to, I begged you not to send my squire into this battle. I told you it would destroy him if something happened to his father, or that it would destroy Belial if something happened to Sieg. Why didn’t you listen to me?”
“Sieg chose this path for his life,” Anri pointed out cooly. “I could not possibly have spent his entire life conveniently assigning him to different missions from his father. The company is not big enough for that luxury to be afforded to me, especially with our numbers so reduced after the war in Lange.”
“This was his first action!” Gavin hissed, leaning forwards on the desk. “He is green as grass and has never seen true combat before! Of all the things to introduce someone to this job you could have chosen, you opted to let that sixteen year old child watch his father burn to death!”
“Woo above and Pit below, Gavin, do you think I don’t know I made a mistake?” Anri snapped, pushing herself to her feet and glowering at her second. “I was desperate, and it clouded my judgement. I know that. I know that. You cannot possible berate me more than I am already doing to myself, so spare me your lectures because I am not in the mood!”
Gavin jerked back in surprise- in all the years he’d worked with Anri, he’d he could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen her lose her temper like this. She was the epitome of elven poise and restraint, almost never letting her thoughts reflect in her face and voice. But there was no mistaking the glimmer of moisture in her garnet colored eyes.
“Eight squads,” she hissed softly. “Eight squads, with eight knights each, we had in Nid’aigle before we left for the Langian War. By the time I had finished shuffling everyone around to compensate for our losses, there were seven squads of six men each. We lost half of the fighters who went with us to Bern. Eighteen knights, who went down on my orders, fighting a conflict that at face value had nothing to do with the elves or Nid’aigle. Do you think I sleep the sound sleep of one without cares with their names and faces on my conscience? Allow me to disabuse you of that notion, because I most certainly do not!”
She sat down again, her hands clenched into fists as she visibly fought to get control of herself again. “Belial Braham was the best pole-arm in the company. I needed him on the front lines because his skill with long weapons was invaluable against a monster as big as a dragon. I also needed to be on the front lines because I needed to be able to relay commands to both our forces and the Jade knights assisting us. And as I’m sure you recall, our third translator was among those who perished during the war. I overrode you and assigned Sieg to the mission because I needed a soldier fluent in both Elvish and Kythian at the command post with the Jade mages and officers. I thought the best warmages that the nobles had to offer would be ample protection for one young squire. I was desperate, overconfident, and it’s not even me who has to pay the consequences for that. There is nothing I can possibly say which will be sufficient apology for how thoroughly I failed both Belial and his son.”
Gavin clenched his jaw, frustration warring with sympathy in his yellow eyes. He wanted to continue raging at her, but it was no different from the way that Sieg was raging at himself- an outlet for his grief and helplessness that had never really been in control of the situation. It didn’t even really help to ease the frustration he was feeling; it just made Anri feel even more guilty.
“I hate this job,” she said softly, breaking the silence between them. “And I think you know why, Gavin. You were next in line when the old commander retired. You were offered this position, and you turned it down. So it passed to me, the next officer in line, and fool that I was I accepted it because I felt I had a duty.”
The elven woman leaned forwards, rubbing her face with one hand. “Sixty-seven years now I’ve been in command of the company. Sixty-seven years of watching my brothers and sisters go out into danger on my orders. Kill on my orders. Die on my orders. If I were any less stubborn I might have gone insane by now.”
“If you were any less stubborn you wouldn’t have risen to third lieutenant and been in line to take command,” Gavin pointed out. “But you stand head and shoulders above the human commanders who fight alongside you and that isn’t just because humans are so short. You are a cursed fine leader most of the time. But… this is a mistake we are going to be paying the price of for a long time to come.”
Anri looked up at her second bleakly. “I know. Even if it were just Belial dying, he was easily one of the most reliable, easygoing officers I had. Where am I going to find another translator so affable he gets the Grand Duke of Bern to like him?” She sighed, her eyes shimmering again. “And he was a great man as well. All the curses of the Pit upon military discipline and hierarchies for never letting me tell him how good a friend he was.”
Gavin reached out the hand that wasn’t balancing on his crutch, gently gripping the commander’s shoulder. “Anri, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Belial and that human wife of his, it’s that for all we elves love to expound upon things as elaborately as possible, some things in life don’t need to be said with words. He respected and trusted you, shared his sense of humor with you, and looked in on you when you were ill that first winter in Lange despite his own weakness. I think he knew.”
The elven woman was silent for a time, her eyes distant and melancholy. Finally, she stood again.
“At the very least, I owe it to him to see that his sacrifice is not in vain,” she said briskly, her manner businesslike once more. “It is inevitable that Squire Sieg will take this poorly. We must endeavor to minimize the trauma from the incident as much as we may, and make sure he does not allow his grief to kill him after Belial gave his life to save the boy.”
“And I suppose that falls to me, as his knight master?” Gavin asked, quirking an eyebrow. Anri nodded.
“You are in the position to have the best access to him and provide the most direct help. But I am partially to blame for how poorly this whole fiasco played out, and so I too must shoulder part of this burden. I…” she hesitated, her gaze turning inwards again. “I don’t know for certain what I can do for the boy yet, but if an opportunity presents itself for me to help him, I will take it. After all, that too is part of my responsibility as his commander. And unlike the task of sending my men out to die, it is a responsibility I do not begrudge.”
Lost to TimeThe light of the small handheld lantern flickered and danced in the darkness of the Nid’aigle forest, casting a wavering orange glow over the trees. Two pairs of gemlike eyes glimmered in the reflected light of the lantern- one bright amber, set in a teenage face framed by wavy black hair, and the other yellow, matching the long-eared man’s shoulder-length, curly blonde hair. The amber eyed boy was staring intently at the tiny flame within the lantern, his jaw clenched and his hands balled into fists so tight that his nails were leaving imprints in his palms.
Neither of them spoke. The blonde man, the length and tapering of his ears betraying him for an elf, simply held the lantern in silence, allowing the boy to gaze into it as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. The boy too had pointed ears, but his were much smaller, indicating that while he did have elven heritage, he wasn’t a pureblood.
The elf realized that the boy’s amber eyes weren’t the only thing about him that was glistening- his skin had taking on a lustrous sheen as well, sweat rolling down his face and arms. He was quivering, and though his eyes were still fixed on the tiny flame within the lantern they had become glassy and unfocused.
Curse it, he’s losing himself again, the man thought grimly. Finally breaking the silence, he called softly, “Sieg?”
No response. The boy shook harder, his face twisting into a grimace of pain and fear, a soft crackle from his mouth indicating that he was grinding his teeth. Trying again, louder this time, the elf shouted “Sieg!”
Sieg gave a start, jerking his head up so that he was looking at the older man’s face instead of the lantern. The boy’s eyes were still glazed with confusion, but a few seconds later sense flooded back into them and he covered his face with a low whine.
“I did it again, I did it again, I’m sorry Master Gavin, I just can’t do this, it happens every time…”
“Easy,” Gavin said softly, putting down the shutter on the lantern so that the flame was no longer visible and casting the woods into darkness. “No one said this was going to be a quick affair. You’re far from the only one of us whose got to desensitize himself to fire after that dragon attack, and you’re making decent progress. You can already handle a flame that’s going during the daylight, this is just the next step.”
“But I…” he swallowed hard, then sighed and looked back at his master with a very fixed, doll-like smile. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I know you’ll get me through this Master, you’re the strongest person I know.”
The elf winced, looking away from that unnatural expression on Sieg’s face. He didn’t especially care for this particular coping mechanism his squire had adopted for dealing with his traumatic experience during the battle with a dragon six months prior, but nothing Gavin had said or done could get Sieg to dispense with it. The boy’s mother was still very deeply in mourning for her husband, killed in the same fight that had left Sieg so damaged, and the teenager insisted that he had to be strong and smile for her sake.
“Come on,” Gavin said. “Let’s get you home. We don’t want to push too hard too soon.”
He held up a hand over his head, and his palm was suddenly glowing with a steady, pale blue light. Sieg looked up at in surprise. “How did… No one ever told me you were a mage!”
“I’m not,” the elf said with a sad smile. “At least not anymore. This is all I can do now- I can’t even make it any brighter or dimmer than this, my control isn’t fine enough. But I figure this sort of steady illumination will be easier on you than the flickering of the lantern, since there’s no moon out tonight.”
He turned and started to lead the way back to the elven city where both of them lived. Sieg, much shorter than his master, had to trot a bit to catch up. “Master, what do you mean by ‘not anymore’? Did you used to have more magic?”
“A long time ago,” Gavin confirmed. “I wasn’t an archmage or anything, but my gift was relatively potent when I was younger. In Miel Doux, the city where I was originally born, I used it to fend off human invaders.”
The half-elf tilted his head. “So what happened to it? I’ve never heard of a mage’s magic losing potency with age or anything like that…”
The elf didn’t answer at first. The silence between them stretched for several minutes, with Sieg beginning to regret his question and wonder if he should retract it. Then, Gavin reached for the right sleeve of his shirt, and pulled it back away from his shoulder.
The half-elf inhaled sharply. There, seared into his master’s skin, was a Courdonian slave brand.
“One day, about four-hundred and fifty years ago, there was a skirmish between one of the northernmost territories of Courdon and the Kythians of what is now Elacs.” Gavin explained softly. “I never really knew what exactly the fuss was about, but probably it was a territorial squabble. Whatever the case, Miel Doux happened to be on the land where the fighting was taking place. Unlike the Jades, the Ophids never bothered to try and come to terms with their own elven populations, so we weren’t even a consideration for the Kythians during that conflict- which left us sitting ducks.”
Gavin brought his hand down so that he could look into the glowing palm. “I was strong, and well trained, but even with myself and the other mages it wasn’t enough. We hadn’t yet created an army of the sort Nid’aigle has now, relying instead on mages exclusively for protection. That was a foolish mistake- they had armor and weapons designed specifically to combat mages. We put up a barrier around the city, but eventually they were able to break through. Against raiding mercenaries we’d been alright, but a war party? We hadn’t a prayer.”
He slowed a bit, looking to Sieg. The expression in his yellow eyes was bleak. “The entire city, with a thousand of our people in it, fell in a single night. I never saw any of them again.”
“M-master…” Sieg said, trying to think of anything he might say and coming up blank. To lose everything in one fell swoop, just like that…
Gavin put his hand up again, taking a moment to get his bearings in the trees before moving forwards again. His voice was hollow as he spoke, as if he were trying not to really think about the memories he was dredging up. “I was taken captive and handed over to Courdonian slave trainers with the army. My magic was problematic for the trainers who were trying to break me, and they hadn’t yet invented those suppression collars they love so much now. So instead they tried to keep the mages all drugged on some potion the humans call ‘magebane.’ From what I was told later, in human mages consuming it renders them temporarily unable to use their powers, and attempting to do so while under it’s influence will cause immense pain to the mage. But… at that point, it’s effects had never been tested on elves.”
He stopped altogether now, the ghost of pain unmistakable in his face. “It was horrible. Not only couldn’t I use my powers, I couldn’t even think properly. I had an excruciating headache, all the time, and I had to be kept in total darkness because even a little bit of light rendered me completely, painfully blind. And my body seemed almost allergic to it- imagine as if every inch of your skin where being devoured by fire ants, all the time, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what it was like.”
Sieg shuddered, “Great Woo… that’s horrible...”
“Aye,” Gavin agreed. “And the worst of it was that even when they stopped drugging me, none of the symptoms stopped. I couldn’t spellcast, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t see… The potion had turned me into a complete cripple and useless as a slave. I think the Courdonians decided I wasn’t worth bothering with anymore, because one day the army moved on, and I was left behind. Shackled, naked, and half-mad with pain, I’m certain they expected me to die in the woods. But they underestimated sheer elven stubbornness.”
The old elf actually smiled at this, though the expression had nothing of joy in it. “In spite of the pain, and the fact that I couldn’t see or move my arms much around the shackles, I managed to drag myself through the woods until I met some Kythian shepherds- I passed out once I got to them, my weakness getting the better of me, but thankfully they had pity and took in the delirious, half-mad elf who’d shown up out of nowhere in their pasture. It took some doing but they were able to eventually get the word back to the Elacsite army about me, who sent a message to the most well known elf-sympathizers in Kyth; the Jades.”
“Oh!” Sieg cried, making the connection. “So that’s how you ended up in Nid’aigle- the Jades told their elven allies about you and they took you in.”
“Exactly so, well deduced,” Gavin replied with a nod. “Eventually the healers in Nid’aigle managed to concoct the right mixture of potions and spell work to undo some of the damage that the magebane had done to me. I could function normally again, my eyes no longer excruciatingly sensitive to light and that neverending headache and skin pain finally subsiding. But…”
He looked up at the canopy of the forest overhead, sadly. “No matter what they tried, they couldn’t restore my powers. Every time I reached for the magic I could still feel inside my soul, I passed out from an overwhelming relapse of that horrible headache. Calling a bit of light was the most I could manage. I felt so… helpless, so frustrated. I’d failed in my duty to protect the people of Miel Doux, and now I’d never be able to do that duty again. It felt like a piece of my own identity had been stolen from me. For nearly a year a did odd jobs around the city, trying to find something that I could do to fill that void where I’d once felt a true sense of purpose. Then, I met Naomi- one of the knights of Nid’aigle.”
His expression softened at the memory, and he smiled gently. “She was very young- had just been knighted, and was still trying to come to terms with that rebound most of the elven warriors have to deal with the first time they kill someone in battle. She, more than anyone else I’d met in the city, understood how I felt. To lose something so important to you, that you just took for granted until it was gone, that was a feeling all the elves in the military service knew far too well. She invited me to spend some time with them, and I agreed. And it just felt right. They knew my sorrow, my sense of responsibility to my people, and unlike the other elves who don’t really express emotion, they were willing to let me talk out my frustrations and to sympathize. There were some mages among them, but most were not- most were ordinary, magicless elves who were doing their part to protect Nid’aigle regardless. For the first time since the Courdonians took me, I felt like I was in a place where I could really belong, among people who understood me. So I enlisted to train as a page- and the rest is, as humans would say, history.”
“Wow…” Sieg said softly, digesting all of this. “Do… do you ever miss it? Being a mage?”
“I used to,” Gavin admitted. “But time and the support of people who care about you has a way of closing even the deepest of wounds. And look at it this way; if I hadn’t lost my powers, I’d be a slave or dead now. Magic is a small price to pay in exchange for my freedom, and the life I’ve been blessed to live.”
Sieg shook his head. “You really are the strongest person I know, Master. I only hope you don’t regret taking on someone so pathetic he’s afraid of a lantern flame as your squire.”
“Nonsense,” Gavin admonished gently. “It took a long time and a lot of support for me to overcome what the Courdonians did to me- it’s only natural the same would be true of you and what you’ve endured. You are far stronger than you think you are, Sieg; I know you will do me proud.” Broken Bridges: Part One“You’re… you’re leaving? To go where?”
Ophelia’s throat felt dry, and she realized she was quivering. Her mother didn’t appear to notice, so focused was the woman on her packing, but then again Morgaine noticed very little these days that wasn’t shoved under her nose.
“To the capital,” the human woman answered. “To Medieville. I’ve put in a down payment for a shop in the Merchant’s Market there. I just need to go and claim the place.”
“You have a shop here,” Ophelia pointed out. “Why go someplace else? Why waste your money?”
“A change of pace, I suppose?” Morgaine suggested, though her heart wasn’t really in the statement. “You and your brother are both adults now, and I’ve been… bored, I guess.”
“That’s it? You’ve been bored?” The hurt and indignation in her voice actually seemed to get Morgaine’s attention, because the human looked up in surprise. “You’re… you’re going to run away from everyone here who needs you because you’re bored?”
“Phee, you don’t need me, and neither does Sieg,” Morgaine said gently. “You’re both strong- a lot stronger than I am, I assure you. Your brother has moved on and found happiness, and-”
“For Woo’s sake, you are so blind! Happiness? Have you been wrapped up in self-pity for so long that you’ve forgotten what happiness actually looks like? ‘Cause Sieg sure as the ‘Pit isn’t happy!”
Morgaine jerked back as if Ophelia had struck her. “Self-pity? What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said!” the half-elf snarled, her eyes starting to shimmer with unshed tears. “You’re so thrice-cursed busy feeling sorry for yourself about Papa’s death that you refuse to actually pay attention to anything around you! You see exactly what you want to see to assuage your own conscience so you can justify how selfish you’re being!”
Morgaine bristled, anger kindling in her now as well. “Ophelia Braham, you may be sixteen now but I am still your mother!”
“Then act like it!” Ophelia shot back. “A mother is supposed to be responsible and care for her children above all else, isn’t that right? Because you’ve sure as ‘Pit been doing a poor job of that the past two years! Sieg and I had to nurse each other through grieving over Papa’s death and figure out how to get by without him, all without so much as a speck of help from you! All you care about is yourself and your own pain, and we can just go hang because we’re not Papa and we’ll never be as good as him!”
“Is… is that wh-what you really think?” Morgaine asked, her voice cracking.
“Prove me wrong,” Ophelia challenged.
The human woman opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. She just stood there, looking up at her daughter, absolute heartbreak writ plainly on her face. But Ophelia found that she couldn’t bring herself to feel sorry for the woman. She’d spent two years being understanding and sympathetic, trying to love this shell of a woman who was no longer the mother she remembered.
The tears that had been stinging her eyes overflowed, and Ophelia’s next words emerged as a sob.
“I hate you.”
She left then. Her mother tried to call out to her, but Ophelia didn’t answer and Morgaine didn’t chase her. As In Olden DaysMorgaine unwrapped the last item she’d brought with her from Nid’aigle- a long, weighted spear with a dull blade and blue tassels adorning it. Her husband’s dress spear, that he brought along for parades and formal occasions. Now it belonged to her.
Everything else had been unpacked and put somewhere in her new shop in Medieville. The spear was the only thing left that she hadn’t found a home for.
The locksmith ran her hands along the smooth, polished wood of the handle. How often she’d seen Belial and his fellows carry weapons just like this, only without the ornamentation. So many times she’d watched them ride off to battle, kissing her beloved and begging him to come home safely. Every time he’d done so, and gradually a sense of… complacency had come over the human woman. Of course he’d come back. Belial always came back.
A slight glint caught her eye, and Morgaine glanced down to see a thin band of white-gold on the hand she was using to stoke the spear. Her wedding ring. Two years on and she still had it. Her throat tightened, and she clenched her hands around the spear. Her eyes stung and she squeezed them shut against the tears. No. She had come to this city, far from the elflands, to get away from all of these feelings. To start over in a place where no one knew her, where she was not drawing piteous glances from all of her friends and neighbors. Where she wasn’t constantly reminded of the life they’d led together, seeing all the places they’d gone and remembering the things they’d done…
Morgaine flung the spear away, and it clattered to the floor of the shop. She yanked the ring off of her finger and threw it as well. She stumbled towards the window of the shop, leaning against it and trying to strangle back her sobs. Her breath fogged against the cold glass, blurring her view of the outside even as the tears forming in her eyes blurred her view of the shop’s interior.
It was all a lie. She hadn’t escaped anything. How could she, when Belial had held her heart in his grasp and now there was an aching void where his death had ripped it away? All she’d done by coming here was cut herself off from her friends and family still in Nid’aigle. She was alone now… so completely, totally alone…
“Sieg… Ophelia… I’m sorry…” she moaned, pressing her forehead harder against the window. “I c-couldn’t… I couldn’t stay… But I need you, I n-need you, I’m s-s-so sorry…”
Regret was pointless now. She’d made her decision, and she had to live with it. Ophelia had made that abundantly clear- in leaving Nid’aigle, the locksmith had alienated her daughter forever. She’d never be welcomed back.
Belial was dead. Ophelia hated her. Sieg, at least, was happy, but that selfsame happiness was proof that she was the last thing he needed in his life, as broken as she was.
To top it all off, today was December 16th- the third day of Woomas, and more importantly, Morgaine and Belial’s anniversary.
The locksmith began to cry in earnest, sliding down the window until she was kneeling on the floor of the shop. It was hopeless, it was all hopeless. What point was there in anything now? Once she’d thought herself independant, and adventurer, the sort of woman who didn’t need anyone else. But now, now that she’d known love and belonging and had it ripped away, now she didn’t know how she’d ever be whole again.
She could still remember all the Woomas festivals she’d spent back home. Holding Sieg in her arms when he was just a baby, watching Belial as he danced in a fox mask on the night of the great feast, receiving the gift of a single truffle carefully hunted out in the woods by Ophelia on the final day of the celebration…
That hurt the most, remembering the eager, happy smile on her daughter’s face. The sharp contrast with how angry and resentful the young girl had been last time Morgaine saw her, , the tears that had flowed from her eyes…
“I’m so sorry, my baby, my darling, I’m so, so sorry…”
Morgaine leaned her head back against the wall of the shop, looking up at the window. The sky was leaden grey, echoing the locksmith’s mood, and for a time she simply stared up at it, lost in a haze of misery and memory. Then, something caught her eye- something small, that flickered in her peripheral vision and vanished only a second later. Surprised, she turned so that she was facing the window properly and looked harder. A minute later, she saw it again- a tiny speck of white, drifting past the window. Then another. Then another.
Snow. Morgaine realized, staring out the window in awe. She’d lived in Corvus her entire life, and never had she seen snow before. When she arrived in Medieville the winter had been unseasonably warm all over Kyth, and the snows were late- it seemed they’d finally arrived.
Hesitantly, she stood and walked outside without even stopping to get her coat or shawl. The snow was thickening now, and though a few people on the street had stopped to glance up at it most continued going about their business in the market without comment. Nothing special to see here. Not for them.
But as Morgaine looked up at the sky, she felt a single frigid flake land on her cheek. It was very cold against her skin, warmed as it was by her tears, and in a way it almost felt nice.
She’d never seen snow, but… But Belial had, during his time in Bern fighting in the Langian War. He knew she’d always wanted to see it, ever since she was little, and he would describe it in exquisite detail in his letters. As the air filled with the drifting specks of white, powdering her face and eyelashes, she felt her eyes flowing over again. But this time, there was an odd sort of relief in the wake of the tears.
“Thank you, Belial. Happy anniversary, and… Merry Woomas.” Ten Things I Hate About ElacsTo our esteemed Jade Neighbors,
It has come to our attention that one of our prized pythons, one Yvette Lisandra XVI, property of the esteemed House Urzur in Elacs, has vanished from the safety of her manor house. It being on the direct border with Corvus, we fear that she has become enticed by the variety of wild prey in the Corvid swamp near our estates. We would appreciate any and all help you can provide in returning Yvette to us; we are certain that we don’t need to impress upon you the grave nature of the threat to our dear python’s safety and health. She might give herself indigestion eating some shepherd’s loathsome sheep. Or his children.
Eternally grateful and wishing you the best regards, your esteemed neighbors,
House Urzur of Elacs
Sieg blinked, staring at the letter he’d just read. He read through it a second time, to confirm he hadn’t just misunderstood the contents because they were in the Kythian that he wasn’t used to reading.
“This… Commander, surely this is a joke?” he said, looking up at the elven woman sitting across the desk from him. Anri’s mouth was set on a grim line as she shook her head.
“I’m afraid it isn’t. The nobles of Elacs are… eccentric, to say the least,” she replied, her expression unreadable. “It could be worse; it could be a venomous snake.”
The half-elf rubbed his forehead. “I am not entirely certain that I would consider a snake large enough to throttle the very life from me preferable to one that can poison me. At least an adder would be small enough to lift. I know not how I am to catch and subdue a reptile that weighs as much as I.”
“Creatively.” Anri replied, her expression uncompromising. “The lord of Jade house asked us to handle this personally- from the tone of his letter he is as much unamused by it as you, but this cannot be helped. Besides, even were it not for the eccentricity of the Elacs it would still be of paramount importance to deal with this issue. The snake is a danger to all of the people and animals in the area. The only difference is that unlike a rabid wolf, which we may shoot with a bow from a distance for the better safety of everyone, politics demand that Yvette be caught and returned home alive. You speak Kythian, so you can communicate with the nobles and locals alike most easily, and you are the youngest of the knights here. As, such it falls upon you to take on as many situations as possible so that you man quickly widen your pool of experience.”
Sieg knew that that meant; he was the low man on the totem pole, and lack of seniority meant he got stuck with the icky jobs. Because of course.
He sighed, and gave Anri the most polite smile he could scrounge up. The half-elf had gotten fairly good at pretending to smile over the past eight years since surviving a traumatic dragon attack that his father had not when he was sixteen. He had a feeling he was going to need every ounce of that experience when time came to present House Urzur with their erstwhile python.
“As ever, you are wiser than I, Commander Anri. Where then might I begin my search for the Urzur’s lost serpent?
She stood and pointed to a spot on a map of Corvus that was nailed to the wall behind her desk. “It is here, in a place called Whispering Waters by the locals.”
“How delightful sounding,” he remarked in Kythian, trying valiantly to restrain his sarcasm. Switching back to Elvish he added, “I wonder who gave it such a whimsical name?”
“Someone who knows nothing about swamps,” Anri said, glancing at the young knight with something that might have been irony in her eyes, though it didn’t translate into her expression. “There is a village nearby called Nulost that you can use as a base of operations. I recommend having the Urzurs come to you there rather than bringing Yvette to them in Elacs. We’re doing them a favor, so the least they can do is refrain from making this harder. They have the means to transport a large reptile, while we do not; if you have to use that as leverage to get them to stoop to making the trip, go ahead and do so.”
“Yes Commander,” Sieg replied, trying hard not to sigh. This was going to be such a pain.
“Good; dismissed,” Anri said, waving a hand to indicate that the younger knight should start getting ready for his trip.
* * * * *
It felt like a long time since Sieg had been alone among people who spoke only Kythian. He almost always went somewhere with other knights in his squad, seeing as he was so young and relatively inexperienced. That and the knights of Nid’aigle were a precious resource for the elves that couldn’t really afford to be risked on solo missions for the sake of bravado or glory.
Which just went to show how little stock Anri put in this job, that she was sending someone to do it alone. Granted, it wasn’t Sieg’s first solo assignment, but it was one of a selection that could be counted on one hand.
He eventually found his way to Nulost, the village Anri had mentioned and rented a room at the inn there. Apparently fishermen and shepherds had already spotted the missing python in their swamp, so there went any chance of Sieg being able to do a cursory sweep of the place and “regretfully” inform the Urzurs that their misplaced pet wasn’t in Corvid territory after all.
It was easy enough to get directions to the Whispering Waters- Sieg left his horse behind at the inn since swamps weren’t exactly great terrain for riding. On reflection he was probably going to have to rent a boat… which was only going to make this more fun, trying to fish a python out of the swamp water without falling in.
Deciding to see how far he could get without extraneous money spending, Sieg headed out to the Whispering Waters for a little reconnaissance. No harm getting an idea of the layout of the place before he decided to try and chase down a killer snake.
At least Sieg was somewhat familiar with how marshes worked. His late maternal grandfather, Bryce Folet, had lived in a small village in the middle of a swamp much further south. That swamp’s name wasn’t as cheerfully misleading as Whispering Waters- instead it went by Deadwood Marsh, after the numerous cypress knees that dotted the water. The village got its name, Cypress Springs, from the same source. Upon arriving at Whispering Waters, Sieg could see that it had a healthy supply of cypress as well- so the python could be in the water or up above in a tree. How marvelous.
One thing that quickly became apparent was that unlike Deadwood Marsh, which was wet and muggy but had a decent amount of dry land interspersed with the bogs, the swamp Yvette had chosen to get lost in was almost nothing but deep, brackish water. To hope that she might be near the shore somewhere was stupid beyond any rational sense of optimism, so with resignation Sieg returned to the town to talk to someone about a boat.
It took a bit of asking around to find someone who was willing to loan their craft to a landsman- not exactly a surprise, considering someone unfamiliar with using a boat could very well damage it, but still a frustration. Eventually, however, he managed to flag down an aging fisherman who agreed to rent his craft to the knight for five runestones an hour. It was just an old dugout canoe, but by that point Sieg was willing to take what he could get.
“Ya goin’ ta kill the snake, Sir Braham?” the fisherman asked as he was untying his canoe and throwing supplies in the front of it. Sieg was very hard put not to roll his eyes.
“I only wish; no, I’m going to capture it. Alive.”
“What?,” the fisherman yelped, actually dropping the oar he’d been about to put in the vessel. “But Sir, that ruddy serpent is near fifteen feet long at least!”
Sieg smiled a very weary smile. “Yes. Yes I know. But Lord Urzur would not be pleased if his darling Yvette was hurt or killed, so my hands are rather well tied.”
“Ah,” the fisherman scowled. “Of course. It’s always the bloody nobles, innit?”
The half-elf only smiled and shrugged in reply. It was his habit to smile most of the time. In dangerous situations or ones that were sufficiently grave he would drop the expression to show that he was taking the problem seriously, and in private moments with people he knew very well like his sister Ophelia or his former knight master Sir Gavin he might be more honest about showing his thoughts. Beyond that, however, he generally just smiled and spoke as politely as possible. It was the best way he knew to deal with the world, after certain events in his life had left him rather fragile internally.
Once he was ready to set out, Sieg thanked the fisherman and began to paddle out into the swamp. He would have liked to keep the man around, as a guide if nothing else since even with his compass it would be frighteningly easy to get lost out in the swamp. But no- it was too dangerous to ask the fisherman to come with him to confront a giant python.
I just hope I don’t end up seriously regretting my life choices by the end of today, he thought grimly. This is not what I wanted to be doing with my knighthood!
Granted, Anri was right about one thing; the snake had to be dealt with before it hurt or killed someone. But the sort of gentle coaxing the elves used for creatures like the wyverns that had caused Sieg’s parents to meet in the first place was usually reserved for native species. Animals that were normally seen in Corvus and guilty of nothing more than doing what came naturally for them. The python was definitely not native and local animals that didn’t know what it was wouldn’t know to be afraid of it. It could decimate the population of wild animals in Whispering Waters if left unchecked. That sort of thing they wouldn’t have been out of place killing outright, for the better of the swamp life as a whole.
Except for House Urzur and the Elacsites fixation with snakes. That presented a significant complication to any safer, more expedient routes that might have otherwise been taken.
Sieg was glad for the oil of sweet basil and juniper that his mother had taught him how to make when he was younger, a sovereign mosquito repellant in her hometown. Granted it’s effectiveness was limited to how long it took the stuff to evaporate off, which was usually not more than an hour in the Corvid heat, so it had to be reapplied often. But stopping to rub himself with basil and juniper oil every so often was better than being itchy and miserable for days. The mix did nothing for midges, biting flies or the clouds of gnats that swarmed over the bogs, but at least it kept off the mosquitos.
Occasionally Sieg noticed a ripple in the water, but for the most part the source only turned out to be the passing frog or fish. Once he caught sight of a log that blinked placidly at him as he passed by it. He shuddered- it was a caiman, a much smaller cousin of the alligators and crocodiles that frequented the swamplands of Corvus, and like the python he was looking for it too wasn’t a local animal. Apparently they’d been brought from overseas by visiting nobles, and kept as pets by some fools who then couldn’t keep up with them. He ignored the caiman- it looked enough like a young alligator that the local prey species would know to be afraid of it, and it wasn’t why he was here anyway. He had much bigger fish to fry.
Still, the caiman was a reminder that Yvette wasn’t the only dangerous reptile in this swamp. If one was so minded, a fully grown twelve to seventeen foot male crocodile could easily tip his canoe. Then the wrath of the Urzurs would be the least of his problems.
A sharp stinging sensation on his arm drew him from his musings and made him yelp in pain. He swatted at the spot, just missing the stinging fly that had bitten him and was now buzzing almost tauntingly around his head. Sieg waved his arms to fend the thing off, sighing. So it had begun.
He eventually reached a small island in the middle of the marsh, and paddled towards it. The half-elf hoped that Yvette’s instincts would drive her towards the patch of dry land and potential prey, rather than up into one of the many trees overhead. If he had to climb after the snake he’d never catch her; Sieg was many things, but a good climber was not one of them. And even if he could manage to shimmy up one of the cypress trees, that wasn’t a very secure position to be in for snake wrangling.
The canoe bumped against the shallows that surrounded the island, and Sieg climbed out to push it the rest of the way up. As he did, however, his feet hit not solid sand but something soft and squishy. His feet sank about six inches into what he realized must be mud. He tugged on one foot to pry it loose, but no joy- he was stuck fast.
“It’s going to just be one thing after another, isn’t it?” he remarked dryly.
Well it could have been a lot worse really- it didn't’ seem to be all that deep of mud. He could probably heave himself up onto the island if he was slow and patient about it. The biggest concern would be agitating the water too much and drawing the attention of a crocodile.
Reaching towards the island, he seized hold of a cypress root that was creeping out of the water and up onto the dry land. He heaved, pulling as hard as he could, and for a few minutes it seemed as if nothing was happening. But, finally, he felt his feet shift, and then with a loud schlooop his feet came free, and he shot forwards so that his face slammed hard into the cypress root. Sieg gasped in pain as his nose impacted the wood, and put a hand up to it in a vain attempt to supress the throbbing. Holding one eye closed, he dragged himself the rest of the way up to the island, then reached out to the canoe and pulled it up as well.
His nose was bleeding- he could feel it running down his face, and taste the coppery tang on his lips. When he pulled his hand away the glove was liberally splattered with crimson.
Trying his best not to mutter some unflattering things about the Urzurs, the Jades, and Commander Anri for pawning this nonsense off on him, he leaned forwards a bit and pinched the bridge of his nose, holding up the already ruined glove to stem the flow of blood. At least he was out of the water. If he’d still been stuck in the mud when he hit the cypress the blood dripping into the water would have been like a glowing beacon for predators.
It was odd to think that if he’d taken a different path in life, he might be at an inn in Rindfell or Albion now, singing to the patrons for coin. He still liked singing, and he was good at it, and for most of his childhood he’d been dead set on becoming a minstrel when he grew up. But when he was eleven he’d abruptly decided to alter his entire course in life, and go for knighthood instead. No one had ever accused him of being intelligent.
When finally he was confident the bleeding had completely stopped, Sieg stood up and surveyed his surroundings. He was well and truly in the middle of nowhere at this point- there was no guessing where the python he was searching for might have vanished to. He could easily search this entire swamp for a year and not find anything. It would have made a great deal more sense to send multiple search parties to scour the swamp, but he knew why neither Anri nor the Jades had done so- this mission was stupid and pointless and not worth the wasted resources of all those people.
Deciding to row in the direction of the border, on the off-chance that Yvette had decided to stay close to home, Sieg pushed the canoe back out away from the bank and climbed in.
Another four hours passed, and Sieg was hot, sweaty, his face throbbed horribly, and he was being eaten alive by flies and midges, but so far there was no sign of the erstwhile serpent.
He caught sight of a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and glanced aside to see that a heron was fishing in the reeds. Dismissing the creature, he turned back to gaze over the swamp. It occurred to him that if Yvette had some sort of camouflage, he might paddle past and never actually spot her. Well wonderful, this situation just kept getting more and more hopele-
The canoe rocked violently, jerking Sieg out of his ruminations. He grabbed on to the sides instinctively, trying to shift his weight to steady it in the water, but a split-second later a huge scaly heat exploded out of the water to his right and completely capsized the canoe. Sieg opened his mouth instinctively to give a cry of surprise and panic, and gagged as water surged into his lungs.
Fortunately the half-elf had grown up in a cottage beside a river, and he was an expert swimmer. The swamp water was murkier than the river water, but he could still make out just enough light to tell which way was up and kick for the surface. As his head broke the top he coughed, spitting and vomiting up the water he’d swallowed. When finally he could breath semi-normally he turned his attention to the canoe- and the alligator that had tipped it over. Another stroke of luck- the alligator didn’t seem at all interested in Sieg. It had a white-feathered wing sticking out of it’s mouth, and the half-elf realized that it must have been after the heron. The canoe was just in its way.
It took a bit of doing to pull the canoe a comfortable distance away from the alligator, then right it- fortunately he also still had his oar. The cunning fisherman had looped a length of leather through a small hole near the top of the oar, and shown Sieg how to put the rope around his wrist so that even if he lost his grip he wouldn’t lose the oar. With a good deal of flailing and grunting, he was able to pull himself up over the bow of the canoe and return to a relatively secure seat. Unfortunately the canoe was now full of water and sat uncomfortably low in the water. He bailed as much as he could, but this action made the canoe rock dangerously and eventually the knight gave up. He’d have to find another island and tip the water out that way.
This day just kept getting better and better.
* * * * *
A second capsizing of the canoe, an oar stuck in some water reeds, and a thousand painful bug bites later, the half-elf still hadn’t located the Urzur’s pet. The sun was low on the horizon and Sieg was seriously considering giving up for the day when a flash of yellow in his peripheral vision caught his attention. He glanced up to see a huge yellow snake with black stripes coiled up in a tree off to his left. It was massive, easily twice as big around as Sieg’s arm and with a length he couldn’t begin to guess as tightly as it was coiled up.
“Hello Yvette,” he said with a smirk, addressing the snake in Kythian. “You have been causing no end of trouble today, did you know that?
The snake didn’t reply, of course, or give any indication she’d heard. Sieg eyed her, his triumph at having finally found the python ebbing somewhat as he realized that finding her had probably been the easy part. She was pretty high up in the tree, and as big as she was even if he could get to her he wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to get her down. It would be dark within another hour or two at most- the clock was well and truly ticking.
Could he bait a trap for her of some kind? Unlikely- he wasn’t precisely an expert on snakes but he knew they weren’t scavengers, nor did they chase down potential prey. They were ambush predators, lying in wait often for days at a time until something edible happened to pass them by.
Deciding that he might be able to get a better idea if he moved closer, Sieg cautiously paddled towards the tree where the snake was resting. The half-elf didn’t think he was in her range, but he had about three seconds of warning as Yvette turned her head before she lunged, needle like teeth aiming straight for his face. He cried out in surprise, jerking hard and once again tumbling into the water. Not wanting to have to tangle with the python and try to keep his head above water, he kicked as hard as he could away from the canoe while still below the surface. He hadn’t expected the snake to move that fast!
When he finally broke the surface, he could see a small island ahead- that was his best chance. There was no way he was safe with the canoe while she was still in the water with it. He risked a glance around, and realized that the snake wasn’t in the water- she was still half-coiled around the branches of the tree, and was working the heavy upper-half of her body back into it.
“Seriously?” he said crossly. “Where you just showing off, is that it?”
“Ya got too close, Sir Knight,” came a high voice, and Sieg looked around in surprise to see a child had come up to him from the island. “The snake was angry ‘cause you were in her space, so she tried to scare you away.”
The half elf swam towards the island, which he now realized was not an island but the shore on the edge of the worst of the swamp. He frowned up at the child. “Are you from Nulost? What are you doing way out here?”
“I’m watchin’ the goats,” he said matter of factly, gesturing at a small group of animals that were just out of sight from the water beyond a thick stand of reeds. “Heard ya talkin’ and came to see what you’d do. But it’s almost sundown. The wisps’ll be out in a little while, it’s not safe.”
Sieg scowled at Yvette as he hauled himself up onto the bank, oar still dangling from his wrist. The child offered him a hand up, which he accepted. “It took me all day to find that thing in the first place- if I leave now it’ll probably take me all day to find her again. And I need to get the canoe back, I borrowed it.”
The child looked up at Yvette. “She’s stayed in this area for a while now. I don’t think she’ll leave by tomorrow. If ya want I can help ya find her again tomorrow.”
Sieg glanced at the child with a concerned frown. “I don’t think that’s safe.”
“I live here, I know what to do,” the boy said scornfully. “The swamps aren’t safe but neither is anywhere else, and the snake’s not more dangerous than the crocodiles I see every day.”
The half-elf sighed. “I suppose you have a point… I still don’t like it, but you know the area better than I do. But promise me you won’t try to catch the snake yourself.”
“I won’t; I already said I know what to do. I’ll stay away from the dangerous animals.”
A pang of annoyance hit Sieg. It wasn’t as if he was out here doing this by choice! But he kept his irritation to himself, instead gesturing out at his canoe. “So how shall I get that back then?”
“Swim for it while the snake’s distracted tryin’ to get back up the tree. At least you’re already wet.”
* * * * *
The following day the child led Sieg along the paths that he took around the edge of the swamp to the best grazing for his goats- paths that were almost entirely on dry land. What few places they did intersect the water were shallow enough for him to wade without much worry of crocodiles, though he did caution Sieg to keep an eye out for local varieties of snakes that liked to swim in the shallow water.
The half-elf still wasn’t entirely convinced this plan was a good idea. He hated the idea of putting the child in danger like this. Granted, apparently he’d been grazing his goats unconcernedly near the huge python for at least a week now, but he hadn’t tried to approach her. Now they’d be actively hunting the thing
“I’m surprised the snake hasn’t gone after your goats,” he said to the boy, who grinned impishly.
“The goats are smart, Sir Knight. The snake’s not very fast when she’s on the ground, and they keep away from the water when she’s not in the tree. Most of the animals around here aren’t scared ‘cause they don’t know what she is, but the goats know and they run. So she goes for easier animals.”
That did make sense. Sieg glanced over at the water’s edge, then up into the trees, trying to see if he could spot Yvette again. So far there was no sign, but the boy was confident she would be around the same area she’d been in the day before, so he tried not to get anxious over not spotting her right away.
A gentle splash drew his attention to the water, and he saw that a crocodile had just nabbed a fish that was swimming by it’s head. The croc wasn’t particularly big- five feet long from nose to tail, probably no more than two years old. But it still could easily badly hurt or kill Sieg or the child, so the half-elf kept an eye on it as they passed.
“Sir Knight, look!” the child said sharply, and Sieg’s head snapped around in time to see a faint rippling from the water several yards away from the crocodile. A yellow head had just emerged from the water, and Sieg felt his heart knocking against his chest. Yvette- how was he supposed to catch her if she was swimming? He did not want to take his chances with a giant python in the water where she was faster and stronger, not after she’d nearly caught him from high above in a tree.
“You have the bag?” he asked the boy, who nodded. He held up a rather large sack that they’d brought along, figuring it was the best way to transport the reptile safely. It didn’t have any claws or even fingers to tear through the fabric, and if they tied off the top it wouldn’t be able to get out. Even better, if it was confined into the bag it wouldn’t be able to coil around Sieg or the child and strangle them to death. But first they had to get her into the-
A tremendous splash broke off Sieg’s train of thought, and his head whipped around. Yvette had just lunged towards the juvenile crocodile, biting it on the nose. The croc thrashed, trying to bite down on the snake clinging to it’s muzzle, but Yvette was faster. She kept her dangling coils away from the crocodile’s mouth, clinging tight to its nose and wrapping around it’s middle.
“Great fiend of the ‘Pit, is that snake trying to hunt a crocodile?” Sieg yelped, his amber eyes going wide with astonishment. The boy was staring at the spectacle with equal bewilderment.
“I… I think it is, Sir Knight,” he squeaked. “And I think the snake is winning the fight.”
The child was right- the crocodile’s thrashing was getting noticeably weaker. Yvette dragged the croc up onto the shore not far from the two humans, who prudently backed away from the struggling reptiles. Then, to their further horror, the snake spread it’s jaw wide and started to swallow the crocodile whole… and the croc hadn’t completely stopped moving yet.
It was slow going- Yvette was only getting the croc down by very small increments, but she seemed determined.
“Sir Knight, maybe… maybe you should grab her now?” the child suggested. “While she’s busy I mean. She don’t seem to be able to get things in and out of her mouth easy and she probably can’t drop the croc fast enough to attack you.”
“I’m not certain,” Sieg replied. “I don’t know if the bag will hold a huge snake and a thrashing, not-quite-dead crocodile. Besides the fact that if she’s confined she might strangle on the croc, and her noble owners would be very displeased. It might be best to wait until she’s almost finished eating, then grab her.”
The watched for another ten minutes, as the snake got the croc’s muzzle into her mouth inch by painfully won inch. The boy rolled his eyes, “At the rate she’s goin’ it’ll be another few hours.”
“Well at least you can get back to your goats,” Sieg replied, smiling wanly.
* * * * *
Sieg did eventually manage to get the mostly-done-eating Yvette into his bag, but it took a good three hours for her to get to the point where he felt safe doing so. Dragging the heavy reptile, weighed down further by the meal she’d consumed, was not in the least fun and it ended up taking twice as long to get back as it had to get there. But he’d done it. He’d caught the stupid python and gotten her back without incurring any injuries worse than bruises and scrapes, mostly from falling into the swamp so many times. When finally Lord Urzur arrived to pick up his precious python, Sieg was immensely relieved. For a sumtotal of about four seconds.
“You put my precious darling in a smelly sack?” he demanded. “How could you possibly be so demeaning! Yvette is a rare tiger-striped reticulated python!”
And you’re a rare lunatic, Sieg thought waspishly, but as ever he maintained a polite, smiling demeanor. Not only was it important for him to be polite to the nice nobleman, a decent sized crowd had gathered to watch the departure of the monster snake.
“Be that as it may, my lord, she attempted to attack me when I drew near and slew a rather large crocodile shortly before her capture. I don’t-”
“Capture?” Urzur interrupted. “This wasn’t meant to be a capture it was meant to be a rescue!”
“I don’t think,” Sieg went on as if he hadn’t been cut off, “that it would be entirely prudent to let her have the freedom of movement without proper restraints to ensure the public safety.”
“Well clearly she was afraid because you were approaching her as if she was a monster instead of the precious darling she is,” Urzur snapped. He turned to one of his attendants. “Let my baby out of this abomination of a sack at once. If she has indigestion from eating that swamp lizard because you were too incompetent to save her before she took hungry, you can rest assured there will be the devil to pay!”
“Please, sir,” Sieg said, trying his hardest not to let his panic show as the Nulost citizens exchanged wary glances.
“I am an experienced reptile handler,” Urzur retorted. “I know what I am doing.”
Knowing there was nothing he could do to convince the man otherwise, the half-elf braced himself as the bag was opened and Yvette’s long coils slowly pulled out.
“My baby, was it horrible?” Urzur asked her, taking the serpent’s head in his hands and coddling it. “Did the awful elf-man scare you? Come on, let’s go home.”
With at least four servants holding up the long trailing tail, he draped Yvette over his shoulders and climbed into his carriage. Not bothering to say a word of thanks for the return of his snake, he gave the order to his coachman and the carriage rattled off. For a moment the villagers were silent. Then, Sieg sighed, turning to fetch his horse so that he could at last go home. “At least that’s finally over. Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?” Broken Bridges: Part TwoOphelia’d heard it from a mutual friend, who’d been with Sieg when he received the letter. Immediately the half-elven woman had abandoned the scroll she’d been translating and taken off for the home the Brahams had once shared. The home Sieg now lived in alone.
Of course, what she’d intended to do was simply warn her brother that he’d do better to ignore the note. He’d gotten his hopes up a thousand times in the past twelve years, only to have them crushed summarily. Ophelia didn’t want to see that happen to him again. And she’d tried. Her initial approach had been even, reasonable, and calm. He’d replied with equal calm, even seeming happy she’d come over to see him.
But somehow this conversation always turned into an argument.
“It’s been four years,” Ophelia said, the impatience in her voice plain. “Four bloody years since you went to see her last time. She’s sent letters sure, but she never once asked you to visit again nor did she try to come here. Why now?”
“Why not now?” the knight asked. “Mother is finally reaching out. I can’t just ignore her.”
“You idiot, she’s using you!” Ophelia snapped. “She isn’t asking you to come because you’re her son and she wants to see you, she’s asking because you’re a knight and you can protect her and that little brat she’s adopted. That’s all you are to her now; a knight she can conveniently guilt into helping her.”
“Ophelia-”
“No, Sieg, listen to me! She wasn’t there for us when we needed her. She spent two years ignoring the rest of the world despite everything you and I did to pull her out of it, and then she just left. No consultations, no warning. She just up and walked out of our lives, and when you tried to follow her she shut you out. Why should either of us ever trust that old hag again?”
The knight closed his eyes, his shoulders shaking. “She was grieving. Just like we were. I can’t hold that against her when even now I still haven’t been able to really move on. Besides… I know she still loves us. I know it. And Phee, it’ll destroy me if she dies because I didn’t answer her call. You know it will, you know me better than anybody.”
“I know you filled the hole in your heart that Papa left by trying to be there for Morgaine,” Ophelia said softly. “And when she left she pulled out that stopper, and you’ve been slowly going to pieces ever since. She doesn’t deserve your help after the selfish way she hurt you.”
“And I don’t deserve your concern after the selfish way I got our father killed,” Sieg replied. “Yet here you are.”
“You idiot, it wasn’t-”
“You’ve said that before. You know I don’t believe it.”
Sieg and his sister stood there for several long minutes, deadlocked. Finally, Ophelia turned away. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. When she disappoints you, I’ll be here. Because I actually do love you.”
Without waiting for his reply, the half-elven woman stormed out of the house.
Call to Adventure"So how long are you going for?" Ophelia asked, stroking the covers of her brother's bed as she watched him backing his saddlebags.
"Not really sure," he admitted. "The travel from Eastern Corvus to Northern Bern will take few weeks on it's own, I imagine. At least four months probably."
"Maybe longer," the half-elven girl finished softly, when her brother did not. "I'm surprised the commander is letting you do this. She's normally so uptight about this sort of thing."
"So am I," Sieg admitted. "But she seemed to think it was a good idea for some reason. Courdon's slavers have mostly been leaving us alone, and she thinks that I could do with... how did she put it? 'A little confidence building,' that's it."
"She's not wrong," Ophelia said dryly. "You were such a proud person when we were kids, but ever since Papa's death you've been beating yourself down no matter how much good you accomplish. It's holding you back."
He frowned, glancing up from his packing to meet her gaze. "'Proud person' is one way of putting it. I'd have said 'overconfident idiot' personally. I don't want to become that person again."
"There's a difference between being cocky and a little honest recognition of your own self-worth," she pointed out. "I tell you all the time you're too hard on yourself."
Then her eyes misted and she looked away. "But you have been getting better about that since last summer. Have you even noticed? You're so much lighter than before, and you've stopped faking happy all the time."
"Reconnecting with Mama helped," he said. "But it also helped that I also walked into a conversation that ended with me being metaphorically knocked arse over end."
He lapsed into silence at that, and Ophelia glowered at him. "You know better than to think you'll get away with being so vague, Sieg. Explain please."
He laughed bitterly, and came to sit next to her on the edge of the bed. "Well I met someone in Medieville who apparently knew Papa from his service the Second Langian War. He must have noticed a resemblance because he asked me if I'd fought in it. When he worked out from what I was saying that Papa wasn't alive anymore, and that I blamed myself for it, he started telling me things. I'd really rather not rehash the entire conversation, it wasn't pleasant. Suffice it to say that by the time we were done talking I just wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and never come out again. I didn’t have the mental capacity to pretend to smile after that, and by the time I’d gotten my wits together again I realized I didn’t want to anymore. No one was judging me or upset about the fact that I wasn’t happy, so I didn’t have any reason to try to be."
The knight flopped backwards so that he was lying flat on the comforter. "It was sort of a nasty wake up call, though. I knew I was still depressed from Papa's death, but I honestly didn't realize I was so fragile that a conversation lasting less than an hour could do that to me. And he very helpfully pointed out that if someone with duplicitous intentions did the same thing I’d more or less be at their mercy."
Indignation prickled at Ophelia at the thought someone had taken advantage of her brother and upset him that way. But then again, he seemed to think it had been for the better, and it was so long after the fact that getting angry about it was pointless.
"Having no self-esteem will do that to you," she said instead, using this as ammunition to support her earlier argument. "It's hard to have much psychological constitution when you're constantly telling yourself that you're worthless."
Sieg rolled his eyes. "You always find a turn my words against me, you're such a brat."
"Just doing my job," she quipped with a smirk. Then the smile faded, and her expression turned sad. "Anri is right, this could be good for you. But... I'll miss you while you're gone, Sieg."
The knight sat up again, concern in his amber eyes. "Phee, this isn't the first time I've gone on an extended trip-"
"No, but those trips were usually only two months, three at most!" she interjected, her voice rising. "Now you're going for close to half a year, maybe longer, and I'm happy that you have a friend you can do this sort of thing with but... but Sieg, what about me?"
"Phee..."
She clenched her jaw; she hadn't meant to turn it into this. She'd just been hoping for a simple "I'll miss you too," maybe a hug. But the floodgates were open now, and she knew that Sieg wouldn't let her just drop the subject now that she'd brought it up. She deflated, refusing to meet his gaze.
"Ever since you went to Medieville last summer and made so many friends there, and started talking to Morgaine again, it's... it's like you're going away. Going somewhere I can't follow you. Sieg, I just don't want to lose you. You're a-all the family I have l-left."
Her throat tightened, and she couldn't choke out another word. Sieg reached over to her, pulling his sister into a fierce hug.
"Ah Woo. Phee, I'm so sorry. I didn't even realize, I'm such an idiot."
She hugged him back, her voice thick. "I'm worried Sieg. What if you go out and have your adventures, and you change? What if you forget about me?"
"C'mon Ophelia, don't be silly. I could never forget you," he leaned away with a grin. "When Papa died and Mama left, you were the only one who stayed with me, remember? You're the only reason I didn't go completely insane. A knight repays his debts, and a big brother doesn't abandon his baby sister."
"I'm not a baby," she replied automatically, then laughed. "You're right, I'm sorry. It's just hard. You're the only one who stayed with me too, you know. You're all the family I have."
He didn't reply at first. Then, very softly, the knight said, "If you wanted to, you could change that."
Ophelia tensed up. "I know what you're going to say, and no. I don't want anything to do with that selfish old hag."
In spite of his sister's anger, Sieg didn't release her from the hug. "You keep saying that, but when I told you that she was almost killed last summer you seemed as horrified as I was."
She scowled, burrowing her face in Sieg's shirt. "Of course I was. Hating her doesn't mean I want her dead, I'm not a monster. She can live as long as she wants, just so long as she stays far away from me."
"And what if she doesn't? What if she's decided she wants to try and make up with you?"
"She hasn't," Ophelia said. "If she had she'd have come back already."
Sieg shook his head, "You don't give her enough credit. She does want to see you again- she told me so last time I was up in Medieville."
"Well then why the 'Pit didn't she come back with you?" Ophelia demanded.
"Honestly? I think she's afraid to."
"Oh really?" the half elven woman laughed. "Afraid of what? The mean, awful little daughter who made her feel bad? She worried I'll be a horrible nasty child and scream at her some more? Am I just that sc-"
She was cut off when Sieg pushed her away from his chest by her shoulders. The look in his eyes was both sad, and oddly admonishing.
"Ophelia, stop it. That isn't what I meant. She's afraid because she realizes what happened was her fault, and she knows that you have every right to be angry. She's afraid because she knows that you have no reason to accept her apology, and it'll break her heart and yours all over again if she forces herself on you when you aren't willing to listen."
The girl glared back at her brother, her chin jutting out stubbornly. "And that's supposed to melt my icy heart is it? I'm supposed to smile and say, 'oh, I didn't realize!' and welcome her back with open arms?"
"What you do is your decision, little sister," the knight said. "But remember the road runs both ways. Mama is hesitating because she doesn't want to put you in the position of having to push her out of your life a second time."
"I didn't push her," Ophelia objected. "She left."
"Then chase her. Pull her back," Sieg smiled crookedly. "You did it for me when I was nearly suicidal after Papa died, hey? And Phee... she's only human. We don't know how long we'll live for, but we do know she probably only has another decade or two at the most. You may not think so now, but I know you'll regret it forever if she dies and you didn't get the chance to make up with her."
Ophelia didn’t have an answer for that. Instead she leaned forwards, so that her head was buried in her brother’s shirt. “You’re really leaving?”
“I already promised Orrin I would if I got permission,” he replied. “But it isn’t forever. I’ll come back and have a ton of stories to tell you, like the ones Papa used to tell us.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you drive me crazy. But… you’re being selfish for once, and you’ve badly needed to do something selfish for a long, long time.”
“Words I never thought I’d hear,” Sieg replied with amusement. “Alright, let me up Phee, I need to finish packing.”
She leaned away, and he stood up with a grunt. Glancing back around he asked, “So what are you going to do? About Mama I mean.”
Ophelia looked down, clenching her fists on her lap. “I don’t know. I… I guess I should at least talk to her. I’m not sure if I’m really ready to forgive her yet, but if she’s really stopped wallowing in self-pity like you say she has at the very least I can confront her about what she’s done and know she’ll comprehend what I’m saying.”
“Gotta start somewhere, I suppose,” he said. “I don’t expect things to get better overnight, not when they’ve stagnated for this long. But someone has to make the first step.”
The woman sighed. “So I guess that’s it then. You’re going to Bern... and I’m going to Medieville.”
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Post by Shinko on Aug 25, 2014 7:42:10 GMT -5
Bitter Reunion - Part OneCollabed with PrincessMaddy
The high cliffs of Raven’s Keep rose up over the landscape, confirming that Ophelia Braham’s destination was near at hand. Soon enough she would be renting a room at the inn Sieg had recommended to her, the King’s Arms, and asking the proprietor for directions to the town lock shop. Despite the rather impressive amount of travelling the half-elf had done since becoming a translator and representative for the elves of Nid’aigle, this was the first time she’d been to the Kythian capital of Medieville. She’d always gone out of her way to avoid assignments that would require her to come to this city, knowing that a certain someone she absolutely didn’t want to run into inhabited the place.
She still didn’t really want to see the person in question, but here she was anyway.
Come on Ophelia, you can do this, she told herself sternly. For Sieg’s sake, at least try to make this work.
It was so hard though. Resentment was a weight on the half-elf’s chest, so heavy she felt like she could scarcely breathe. She’d tried so long to help her mother through the grief they’d all been struggling with, only to have those efforts flung back in her face when Morgaine abandoned her children for this thrice-cursed city. Why should Ophelia have to be the one to extend the olive branch, when she was the one owed an apology?
This. Is. For. Sieg. she thought, gritting her teeth. Her brother was the only family she had left, and she’d do anything for his sake. Even if she didn’t care to ever see the locksmith again, she knew Sieg didn’t share that sentiment. It hurt him to see Ophelia and Morgaine so at odds, and the half-elven woman had promised him she would at least talk to Morgaine while he was on his adventures in Bern.
And the truth was… part of her did miss her mother terribly. The problem was that the person who’d left Nid’aigle over a decade ago hadn’t felt like the formidable mother Ophelia knew and loved. That woman was a feeble, broken stranger who would rather abandon her children and run away from her grief like a coward than move on for the sake of the family she had still living. Sieg insisted that Morgaine had come around, that she had become like her old self again, but after all this time Ophelia didn’t dare set her hopes too high. She’d already been disappointed by Morgaine once- she would guard her heart much more closely this time around.
* * * * *
There was a loud hiss as steam erupted from the bucket of cold water Morgaine and Rosalie kept beside the forge for their smithing. Morgaine carefully manipulated her tongs to pull out the loop she had just shaped for what was to eventually be a padlock, scrutinizing it carefully. Satisfied, she set it on a nearby rack to cool.
“Rosalie, did you need the forge for anything today?” she asked, turning towards her partner. “If not I’m going to put out the fire for now, it’s too hot to keep it burning unnecessarily.”
“Nope” Rosie told her partner, sitting at her work bench. She was smiling happily at her handy work. “I’m just tweaking this one, one last time.”
Morgaine nodded, and took the bucket of water she’d previously been using to cool her lock parts to dump over the fire. Once she’d made sure that there were no embers left burning below the surface, the old woman stood and stretched.
“Not a bad day’s work,” she commented. “Been a while since I saw any new commissions, but with any luck this is only a temporary dry spell. I’ll have to-”
There was a jingling of the bell over the door, and Morgaine looked around in surprise. Usually they kept the shop closed while the forge was running, so no one foolish was mucking around the shop when a live fire was lit. The closed sign was on the door, who-
When Morgaine saw the face of their visitor, however, she let out a small squeak of surprise. Standing at the front of the shop was a tall woman, her long black hair tied back in a braid that reached almost to her waist. Deep sapphire blue eyes stared back at the locksmith, though it was impossible to tell from those eyes what the newcomer might be thinking. But most striking was her ears- they were tapered at the top, coming to thin points.
“Hello, Mother,” she said, her voice deliberately, calculatedly calm. The locksmith stared back, shock and disbelief seeming to paralyze her voice.
“O… Ophe… lia…” Morgaine finally managed to stammer, still not quite daring to believe her own eyes.
Rosie was slightly confused by Morgaine’s squeak. She got up from her work bench and hurried to the door, to make sure it wasn’t someone scary or something. A lump caught in Rosalie’s throat. There stood a very lovely elven women. Ophelia? That was what Morgaine had said. That was… Sieg had said….
Rosie just stared at her. She shouldn’t be here. She should just go away. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t….. Rosie bit her lip. Maybe if they didn’t say anything she’d just go away.
Ophelia glanced in Rosalie’s direction, and her mouth curled down at the corners. This must be the keymaker that she’d heard about. Turning away from the young girl, she met Morgaine’s eyes squarely.
“So, not even a hello?” she asked softly, her voice carefully neutral. “Eleven years it’s been, and you aren’t even going to greet your long lost daughter?”
The locksmith winced, but tentatively took a step towards the half-elven woman. “Ophee, I-”
“Don’t call me that,” Ophelia snapped, her cool facade cracking momentarily. She smoothed her expression over again, and adopted a patently false smile. “I’m here because Sieg asked me to be, not by my own choice. He seems to think you’ve changed. So tell me, have you?”
Rosalie gripped her dress tightly. She closed her eyes. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. Go away.
She raised her head, opened her eyes, and glared at Ophelia. “Go away,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, “We don’t need you here, go away!”
“Rosie, please I-” Morgaine started, but Ophelia was quicker.
“Excuse me, I wasn’t talking to you,” she said coolly, glaring right back. “I was talking to my mother, whom I’ve every right to address. If she would like to ask me to leave, to kick me out of her life again, she may do so. Until then, mind your own business.”
The locksmith gritted her teeth. She knew Rosalie wouldn’t respond well to that, and she shook her head frantically. “Ophelia, please, don’t try to order her around, she doesn’t like it.”
“Oh, so it’s okay for her to tell me to leave, but when I ask her to butt out I get lectured? I see how it is,” the elven woman said, her hands shaking.
“That’s not what I meant!” Morgaine objected.
Rosie looked at the woman with disgust, “She doesn’t want you here!” Rosie said angrily, “No one wanted you here! Just go AWAY!” She stomped her foot like a child throwing a tantrum, “LEAVE!”
“Rosalie, I never said I didn’t want her here!” Morgaine said, though there wasn’t much of the sternness that would normally have been present in her voice. Instead she sounded frantic, like she were juggling hot coals on a thin beam in each hand and at any moment they might fall off and burn her. “Please calm down a minute, both of you!”
Ophelia, quirked an eyebrow at Rosalie’s outburst, but didn’t seem terribly impressed by it. She instead turned to Morgaine. “I’m listening.”
The locksmith shook her head. “Ophelia, I’m sorry about what happened, I’m sorry about before. It was stupid, and selfish, and short-sighted of me. You were right, and I didn’t listen, and I’m…” her voice was very small, and sounded more than half sob. “I’m sorry.”
Rosalie looked at Morgaine, stunned. “W-w-hat are you saying? That you WANT her here??” She felt tears roll down her face. She wasn’t sure if they were angry tears or sad tears. Maybe both.
“Y-y-you” she had lost her words. Morgaine didn’t need her if she had Ophelia. Why would Morgaine need some girl from Bern if she had her daughter? Why would she want Rosalie to stay? Where would she go? She had her Lawernce but- She felt a whimper escape her mouth.
“You- you don’t NEED her.” Rosie said quickly, “Make her go away!!”
Ophelia turned towards Rosalie, exasperated. “Why are you crying? This has nothing to do with you, I’m just trying to talk to my mother about some personal family matters. If anyone needs to butt the ‘Pit out, it’s you, little girl.”
“What did you call me??” Rosie shouted.
“Please, stop it both of you!” Morgaine said. “Rosalie, you did this same thing with Sieg, and we already had this conversation, why are you doing this again? I haven’t seen Ophelia in eleven years, I just-”
“I called you what you are,” Ophelia interrupted angrily. “I hadn’t even done anything and you were shouting at me to leave like a petulant child, and you just keep repeating that same note like some mocker-bird. What have you even got against me anyway? I’ve never met you!”
Rosalie ignored Morgaine, and glared at Opehlia. “Morgaine doesn’t need you anymore! She has me! So go away!”
“Oh, is that so?” the half-elf asked. “Alright, Mummy Dearest, is that true then? If you don’t want me around I’ll go, I wouldn’t want to come between you and this charming young miss you’ve adopted.”
“Why are you both being like this?” Morgaine asked, sounding both exasperated and pained. “Rosalie is Rosalie and Ophelia is Ophelia, stop acting like I have to chose one or the other! I love both of you!”
Rosie turned to Morgaine, ignoring Ophelia, “I guess…. if you want to love both of us... I don’t see why’d you want to love HER though. Not much to love.” Rosie shrugged, “But if that’s what you want…”
Ophelia rolled her eyes, “Hark who’s talking. I’m not the one who started screaming to ‘go away’ the minute someone I don’t even know walked in.”
“I know you,” Rosalie said angrily, “You’re Ophelia and you don’t belong here!”
The half-elven woman took a deep, shuddering breath, then slowly let it out. “I’m here because my brother, who I understand is a very good friend of yours, asked me to be. I’m here because I wanted to give my mother a chance to prove she really has changed, and to let her apologize for abandoning me and Sieg like yesterday’s trash eleven years ago because we were not as precious to her as our father was. I may not belong here, but neither does she-” at this Ophelia pointed to Morgaine, who had buried her face in her hands and seemed to be trying very hard not to cry.
“Maybe she threw you out like yesterday’s trash because you ARE.” Rosie yelled, no longer calm, “Sieg doesn’t need you, Morgaine doesn’t need you, nobody needs you! So just go away! We were fine without you, so just leave Morgaine alone!”
“Both of you, just STOP IT!” Morgaine shrieked, her voice cracking. The tears she’d been fighting back boiled over, streaking from her single eye as her entire body shivered. “I’m, I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry, it was m-m-my fault, stop, s-stop fighting, p-p-please, I…”
She choked, unable to get another coherent word out. Darting around Ophelia, she bolted out the door and down the road.
“Wha, hey, wait!” Ophelia called, looking both surprised and angry. “Don’t run away again!”
Rosalie didn’t try to stop her. She just watched. She glanced at Ophelia, then quickly left the room. Ophelia could stay there for all she cared. She didn’t care anymore. She just wanted to hide under the covers and pretend this didn’t happen. She just wanted to pretend everything was ok. Even if it wasn’t.
Ophelia watched as Rosalie left the room without so much as a word, and scowled. She’d wanted so badly to just keep it together, to try and at least be civil about this for Sieg’s sake, but somehow that girl had pushed all of her wrong buttons, and brought the anger and resentment bubbling to the surface. And faced with that anger, her mother had run away. Again.
This was a mistake, she thought bitterly, turning and shoving the door open with far more force than was necessary. I should have stayed home. Bitter Reunion - Part Two Collabed with OrangeTiger
It was a lot later than Leif usually liked to run errands, but to his relief the streets weren’t as jam-packed as he would have expected. The heat was probably keeping a lot of people indoors whenever possible, and by this time some merchants would be closing up shop anyway. Hopefully that didn’t include the leather-worker; Leif had been meaning to repair one of Hadrian’s jesses for a few days now, but other obligations kept getting in the way.
For once, though, he wasn’t hurrying to get the task done with. The heat was rather nice, especially after how long it had taken spring to really gain ground, and without so many people around, he didn’t feel the need to get off the street so quickly. It seemed like it was going to be a quiet, uneventful evening.
Quiet and uneventful for Leif perhaps, but for Morgaine what had started off as a similarly routine end to another day had quickly degenerated into a disaster. She had not been expecting the daughter she’d fallen out with thirteen years prior to show up out of the blue. Then Rosalie had gotten jealous, and both of them had started screaming and flinging accusations at each other and and he locksmith, and she didn’t even have time to even try to process the situation before it had spiraled wildly out of control. The guilt Morgaine already felt over the falling out with Ophelia over a decade prior and the very unpleasant impression that she’d gotten off of both girls that she’d end up having to chose one or the other had been far too much for her to deal with. Despite several attempts to diffuse the situation, in the end all she’d been overwhelmed, and desperate to escape the guilt and the heartbreak that every second in the lockshop was compounding, Morgaine had fled.
She wasn’t even paying attention to where she was going- she just ran down the street, hands covering her face as tears streamed from her one good eye. How had this happened, it had just come out of nowhere, she’d wanted to make up with Ophelia but this was all wrong, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be!
It wasn’t until she ran practically full-tilt into someone else’s back that her stride was finally checked. With a wet, watery cry of surprise she stumbled backwards, losing her balance so that she fell with a thump on the street.
For once, Leif hadn’t been paying much attention to his surroundings, choosing instead to glance up toward the roofs and the distant treetops in the hopes of maybe spotting an interesting bird. So he had just barely registered that there was an odd sound coming from behind him, and hadn’t even gotten a chance to start turning around when that same something hit his back. With a startled noise that started as a surprised yelp and ended up a sharp intake of breath, Leif staggered forward a few steps before getting his balance and turning sharply.
“...Mrs. Braham?” Leif’s brief agitation at being run into was quickly brushed aside by confusion and worry. “Mrs. Braham, what’s wrong?” He stepped back toward her, already feeling a nervous queasiness. This was the same woman who’d lost an eye and often barely seemed bothered by it - if something had dissolved her to tears, it must be something exceptionally bad.
Morgaine recognized the voice, and she winced inwards on herself. “M-Master Leif, I’m, I’m sorry, I wasn’t w-watching where I was g-g-going. I’m, I’m f-fine, I… I…”
A soft whimper cut her off, and she buried her face in her hands once more. “I’m s-such an i-idiot, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
“I - no, it’s - it’s fine, Mrs. Braham…” Leif felt very off-balance, even more so than usual in a conversation. “It was an accident.” He started to hold out a hand to help her up, but considering she had her face buried in her own hands, that was going to be a pointless gesture.
Leif had no illusions about how qualified he was to comfort somebody in severe emotional distress - but it didn’t look like there was anybody around who was going to take his place doing that. He’d have to do the best he could and hope it didn’t just make things worse.
He stooped awkwardly beside her. “Are you okay?” he asked, which was a stupid question, because obviously she wasn’t. “What happened?” That was...better, at least.
She shook her head, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. “I… It’s a l-long story, and I d-don’t want to h-hold you up, I’m sure you were busy.”
“It can wait - I’ve already been putting it off a few days, and Hadrian can just deal with his current jesses.” Like Leif was just going to leave her in the street like this. Even he wasn’t that bad.
It took him a few long seconds to make the leap in logic that they didn’t actually have to stay in the street. “Here...“ He held out his hand this time. “Why don’t we get out of the road. I’m - I’m sure it’s not comfortable to sit on,” he added.
Reassured somewhat to have bumped into one of her friends who was making sense and not acting on hysterical impulses, Morgaine bit her lip and nodded. She let Leif help her stand, and guide her to a small stand of trees off the main square of the market. There was a stone bench set under the trees, and she sat down next to him on it with a soft sigh.
“I…” she began hesitantly. “I suppose the best place to start is thirteen years ago. You… you know I’m a widow. That was when my husband passed away. It hit me… hard. I was so broken by it, so devastated that I completely shut myself off from the rest of reality. Sieg was about sixteen at that time, and his younger sister, my daughter Ophelia, was fourteen. It was hard for them, having just lost their father and with me… not entirely accessible. Ophelia more or less took over being in charge of the family and looking after all of us, despite being so young. But time went by and I just…. I couldn’t move on, I couldn’t let go, it hurt too much.”
She waved a hand around the street, taking in the Medieville marketplace. “Two years after he passed, I decided to leave Nid’aigle. Being there, where we’d lived for so long, I couldn’t bear it. There were too many memories. So I bought the shop where I live now, and told Sieg and Ophelia I’d be moving to Medieville. By that time Sieg was eighteen and Ophelia was sixteen, and I figured they would both be fine; Sieg was a squire and on his way to knighthood, and Ophelia was learning to be a translator. But… I was s-stupid.”
The old woman was shaking again, her face and voice awash with guilt and bitterness. “When I told Ophelia what I had planned to do she… she got angry. She said that I was, I was abandoning my children, that I was running away like a coward. She told me I was blind and stupid and that I was completely ignoring how hard it all was on her and Sieg and thinking only about myself and my pain. Th-that I…”
She whimpered again, covering her face with her hands. “Th-that I loved their f-father more than I l-loved them, and that I’d n-never care about them the same way I did for my h-husband. I tried to argue b-but I just, I couldn’t, there was n-nothing I could say and I didn’t really think she meant it, I thought… but she was so angry, and I… Sieg still sent me letters but I never once, not in eleven years heard from Ophelia, my daughter, my baby.”
Her throat closed, and she leaned forwards with a sob.
Leif listened quietly, guessing there was probably nothing he could say that would help, at least not until he’d heard the whole story. It was...strange, thinking of Morgaine being broken and absorbed in grief. But it had been the death of her spouse, that was bound to hurt worse than any sort of physical pain no matter how tough a person you were otherwise.
Partially distracting Leif from that strangeness, however, was an uncomfortable sort of...recognition, maybe? He wasn’t sure what exactly to call it, just that it almost felt like a reverse version of Leif’s family history. Except...without the death. And he’d been the one to leave, not his parents. And he had a hard time imagining either parent being anything except angry over it. ...Maybe it wasn’t as similar as his emotions were telling him.
And it is a whole different set of circumstances, he reminded himself. Mrs. Braham and Sieg and...Ophelia were grieving - that doesn’t make people act like themselves. Especially when you’re still in the same place with all the same things around.
This was also really not the time for Leif to be worrying about or even comparing his past issues. His problems were in the past. Clearly, however, that wasn’t the case with Morgaine’s family troubles.
He hesitated, but put a tentative hand on Morgaine’s shoulder as she started to cry again. “I’m sorry,” he said. It wouldn’t do much good, his being sorry for what had happened, but he didn’t think pressing Morgaine about what had brought all this back was a good idea; better to let her do it in her own time, if she felt comfortable talking about it at all.
Morgaine put a hand up to he one Leif had put on her shoulder, squeezing his gloved hand gently with her rough, calloused one. For several minutes she just cried, not able to continue her narrative around the emotions battering her from the inside. Finally, however, she was able to throttle them back and get a hold of herself again.
“When, when I took in Rosalie, she was what finally woke me up. You know how she is, always cheerful but not all there most of the time. She was so naive, and I felt like someone had to look after her so she didn’t get herself into trouble. It gave me a reason to go on, to pay attention to the rest of the world again. So when I saw Sieg again last summer, for the first time in a long time I was looking at him with a clear head. And… and I realized Ophelia was right. That smile he always has, that eternally sunny disposition, it was all fake, just a ruse to hide how much he was still hurting after his father’s death and my leaving. I felt… so ashamed, like such a horrible mother, for not having seen it sooner. I managed to patch it up with him, but he was never really angry with me in the first place. The one who was, the one I desperately wanted to make amends with… was the last person who’d ever want anything to do with me again. At least that’s what I thought.”
She looked up at Leif, a world of pain in her eyes. “She came to the shop today- my daughter, Ophelia. I didn’t know she was coming, but from what she said I gather Sieg asked her to try and make up with me before he left for Bern. I could see it in her eyes, that she was still angry, but she was trying at least to be civil… but then there was Rosie.”
The locksmith swallowed hard. “She’s so jealous, so selfish a lot of the time. She hates to share anyone’s affections, and sees anyone who seems to be competition for those affections as a replacement. She didn’t even really give Ophelia time to say much, she just started screaming at her to leave. I tried to defuse it, but both of them kept getting angrier and angrier and not just at each other but at me too, and I, I just couldn’t…”
She clenched her hands into fists in her lap. “It’s all my fault, I brought this on myself. I was stupid, and selfish, and a horrible mother. But I just don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t take it back, and I don’t want to lose Ophelia again now that she’s finally tried to talk to me but I…” she clenched her teeth, her eyes shimmering. “I don’t want to lose Rosie either, she’s like my daughter too, in her own way, and she helped me to really live again, I owe her so much. I don’t know what to do.”
Leif breathed out slowly, not with impatience, but just trying to take a moment to fully process the whole story. “Well...obviously you shouldn’t have to chose between them. That’s ridiculous - I know Rosalie’s...er, over-the-top with her emotions, sometimes, but even she can’t realistically expect to be the only important person in your life. ...That’s not even fair on her part, she has a boyfriend. Surely you’re allowed to have things like blood relatives.”
Realizing he was starting to go on a tangent, Leif forced himself to stop and refocus. “But - I don’t know, Mrs. Braham. It’s….that’s hard for both you and Ophelia.” He looked down at his boots, frowning. “I know you can’t take it back, but, you were in mourning. She had to be, too, in her own way. And you’re both better now than back then - or I’m guessing Ophelia is, anyway? If she came up to see you…” Leif shook his head slightly. “I guess all you can do is keep trying to talk to her. ...Probably away from Rosalie. But if you keep trying...she can only deny that it means something for so long.”
Morgaine was surprised to find a small smile quirk at the corner of her mouth as Leif tried to ramble his way through advising her on the situation. By now she’d learned he wasn’t exactly the most socially adept individual, but he had a good heart and the fact that he was willing to try to help despite his own awkwardness meant a lot.
She hesitated for a moment, then reached around his shoulders to pull him into a brief hug. “Thank you- for listening to my rambles and for trying to help.” She let him go, her eyes glistening again though her voice was steady and surprisingly amused when she spoke. “I know it must be hard, trying to confront problems that aren’t related to magery or falconry. But I’m glad you did.”
Leif froze for a moment when Morgaine hugged him, but managed to snap himself out of it and return the gesture - a little awkwardly, probably, but better than usual. “I wish this was the kind of problem I could throw Ayleth or a spell at. ...I don’t think either one would help, or I’d offer,” he added wryly. “Is...is there anything I can do, though? Like...I don’t know, distract Rosalie? Or…”
Morgaine sighed, but shook her head. “If I’m going to corner Ophelia before she leaves, likely the best place to do that is the inn, which I imagine she’s staying at. Rosalie doesn’t ever go anymore because Kelcey Kidde’s ghost freaks her out- little known fact, he flirted with her at the feast last summer while in the guise of a Courdonian noble and scared her half to death, so she told Aines that he should behead Kelcey. Then the real Courdonians actually did.”
“Oh,” Leif stammered, having not expected ghosts to come up in this particular conversation. “I - I guess that’s a good place to go, then.” Leif had heard rumors about a ghost in the King’s Arms, and since they concerned the ghost in question having come into his afterlife on the orders of the Courdonian king, it was the sort of gossip Leif actually paid some attention to. He hadn’t heard about Rosalie’s experience with him, though...or that he’d been disguised as a Courdonian noble at the feast. Well - I guess that explains where “Prince Joram” disappeared to during the Coronation, he thought. “So - are you going after her, then?”
The locksmith nodded, though there was uncertainty in her eyes. “I have to try. She’s… she’s my daughter, my baby. It’s hard to explain, but I birthed her, I held her in my arms when she was an infant, consoled her when she was frightened or upset, and nursed her when she was ill… she’s like a part of my own soul. I can’t just do nothing.”
“Of course,” Leif agreed, his gaze flicking away. “She’s your daughter.”
Morgaine noticed the slight shift in the Jade’s demeanor, but decided not to press him on it. This wasn’t really the time or the place, and she didn’t know how long Ophelia would linger after that blowout with Rosalie. The half-elf had never been one to stay in a place where she obviously wasn’t wanted.
Instead, the locksmith reached out a hand and gently squeezed Leif’s shoulder. “I should go, but… thank you again.”
Realizing his eyes had shifted, Leif looked back to Morgaine. “Of course. And I hope it all goes well, Mrs. Braham.”
Bitter Reunion - Part Three Collabed with Gentlelilqueen and Elycien
By the time Ophelia made it back to the inn where she’d left her belongings earlier, she was on the edge of tears herself. She’d told herself she wouldn’t get her hopes up, that she’d stay stoney and expectant of nothing, but she just hadn’t managed it. Some small traitorous part of her had hoped things would go well. Maybe, just maybe…
But of course they hadn’t. Morgaine had her cute little key brat, and as Rosalie had said, she didn’t need Ophelia anymore.
Good riddance then, the half-elf thought bitterly. If you’re just going to run away and let that thing you adopted insult me, I don’t need you either!
She flung open the door to the inn, and squinting against the stinging in her eyes, and stalked up to the counter.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but there’s been a change of plans,” she said thickly, anger plain in her voice. “I won’t be staying tonight- I’m going home. But as an apology you may keep the price of my stay for the night.”
The sound of the door slamming open made Ilsa jump, looking up sharply from where she was chatting with Clare across the bar. “Ophelia?” she said, concerned. She had spoken with the half-elf earlier - only briefly, but it was enough to establish that she was Morgaine’s daughter. It was enough of a connection to be concerned by Ophelia’s distress. The innkeeper straightened up and hurried around the bar to meet her. “Is everything all right? It’s a little late in the day to start the journey south.”
Clare glanced over at the half-elven girl, curious and concerned by the girl’s apparent anger. She didn’t recognize the girl, but there was something about the way she looked, particularly with her ears and hair that made her wonder. Not wanting to interrupt yet, she merely watched them, a concerned frown on her face.
Ophelia laughed bitterly at Ilsa’s question, refusing to meet the innkeeper’s eyes. “Oh, nothing less than exactly what I expected. It’s been thirteen years and she hasn’t changed a bit- still the same coward she was before. Besides, as her little friend so delicately put it, she doesn’t need me. So I’m going home.”
Clare raised an eyebrow, wondering who she was talking about. Given the way she looked… It couldn’t be, could it? She couldn’t be talking about Morgaine, of all people. “Who?” she asked before she caught herself.
Ophelia tensed, glancing at the woman who’d spoken. “I don’t see how it’s any of your buisness, madame.”
Clare paused. “Sorry. I was just wondering if it might be someone I know.” She had a skeptical look on her face as she said this, though, wondering if she might be mistaken after all.
Ilsa glanced between Clare and Ophelia before speaking. “You mean Morgaine?” she said to Ophelia, keeping her tone purposefully light. “I wouldn’t normally think of her as a coward. Tends to speak her mind more often than not.”
Ophelia scowled. “That’s how she was when I was younger- maybe that’s the face she wears for you now. But she changed after father died, and decided that running away from her problems was the best way to handle them- she’s been doing it for over a decade. I don’t suppose she ever mentioned it to you? Of course not, because that would mean owning up to it.” The girl sighed, deflating somewhat. “I’m glad at least that for you she can be the mother I once respected-but she stopped being that person in my eyes a long time ago, and she proved just now that she hasn’t moved an inch since then.”
Clare frowned, glancing over at Ilsa. What the young girl had said confirmed what she had thought, but she still wore a frown. “I can’t speak for what she did then, but I don’t think that’s how she is now. I bring it up because I know her too. When I first spoke to her, she didn’t seem like that.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how she acts around you, true. But I can’t think of what she could have done to you today to prove that.”
Ophelia gave Clare a thoughtful look. “Seems she’s made a lot of friends for herself in this city. I guess she found what she was looking for when she left Nid’aigle then.”
The girl shrugged. “She didn’t do anything- that’s the problem. I went to the shop and hadn’t even been there for two minutes when her friend, the little blonde girl, started screaming at me to leave. She said, if you please, that I should ‘go away’ and Morgaine ‘doesn’t need me.’ My dear, beloved mother made a few token efforts to stop her from screaming, and when I got angry that the kid wouldn’t stop, Morgaine ran off.”
There was a profound bitterness in the half-elf’s voice as she added, “I guess the fact that she has people waiting in the inn to stand up for her is proof that the kid was right. She doesn’t need me; she has her own life here now, so I’ll leave her to it. That’s what she wanted.”
Ilsa frowned, leaning on the counter. “I don’t know if I’d hold Morgaine responsible for what her partner had to say,” she said slowly. “She’s a fine keymaker to be sure, Rosie is, but there’s no doubt she’s a little…” She winced. “Not always the wisest. But, all the same… I’m sorry it went so badly.” She gave the half-elf a smile, sympathetic. “Your mother’s been a good friend to me, Ophelia, that is true,” the innkeeper said. “But I’d never claim to replace her family.”
Clare considered. “And I don’t think she wants to, really. I am sorry for what happened back there. All the same, I think she does care. I’ve seen how she acts around her son, when he’s around. And they’ve been there for each other, and speak fondly of each other... From what I’ve heard from her, I think she does miss her family. And all the friends in the world won’t fill that gap.”
Ophelia looked to the side, her eyes narrowing. “Then why did she not come home once, in eleven years?”
“I don’t think Clare or Ilsa can really answer that question for you,” a soft, age-roughened voice interrupted from the doorway. “But if you’re willing to hear me out without Rosalie’s jealousy complicating a conversation that’s hard enough for me to have to begin with, maybe I can.”
Ophelia spun around, her shoulders hitching up. “How did you get here so fast? I thought you ran off somewhere crying.”
“I did,” Morgaine said. “But once I’d calmed down I came here directly- and I’ve lived here over a decade, I’ve learned the shortcuts and how to navigate the crowds at different times of day.”
The old woman glanced at Clare and Ilsa with a tired smile. “I’m sorry, you must both be… confused. It’s a long story, and I’m not as blameless in it as you’d probably like to believe I am.”
“I already gave you another chance,” Ophelia said, her shoulders trembling. “You tossed it away because you couldn’t handle it. Why should I try again?”
Clare watched the exchange, with a confused look on her face indeed. But she interjected all the same. “Having a talk about something like that is something you two should do alone. Having someone else interjecting for something like this will just make it harder for both of you to explain. And it sounds like it has.”
“I don’t want to talk to her,” Ophelia snapped. “What good will it do when Rosalie’s made it perfectly clear that it’s me or her? What are you going to do Mom, who are you going to walk out on this time? Because I don’t think she’s going to let you say ‘neither.’”
Morgaine flinched. “I need a chance to talk to her- she’s not unreasonable, she’s just… stubborn. Stubborn and very selfish.”
“Gee, that sounds familiar,” Ophelia growled, and the old woman looked away. A trace of exasperation edged into Ophelia’s tone as she added, “And stop cowering away from me like I’m going to hit you. You want to prove to me that you’re the mother I remember? Act like her. She wasn’t afraid of anything, least of all me!”
Ilsa watched, fascinated in spite of herself. This wasn’t like Morgaine at all. Ophelia, on the other hand… despite her anger, and the fact that she certainly wouldn’t want to hear this right now, her staunch stubbornness distinctly reminded the innkeeper of her mother.
“So you don’t want to talk to her,” Ilsa said. “Fine. But why should you let young Rosie have the final say? This isn’t her business.” Neither was it Ilsa’s, technically, but the innkeeper easily dismissed this thought, crossing her arms. “Nid’aigle’s a fair distance, you’d be wasting the trip. And correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I know of your mother and your brother, I wouldn’t have thought any Braham had it in them to back down so easily.”
Ophelia jerked back from Ilsa’s remark, her eyes narrowing. How could she even explain? That Morgaine had abandoned her own children, then took in Rosalie like it was nothing, that Rosalie called herself Sieg’s sister and he clearly thought of her likewise… The way Rosalie had spoken was just confirmation of what Ophelia had felt deep down in her gut when she first heard from Sieg about the girl in one of their mother’s letters- she was a replacement. A shiny new daughter Morgaine could look after that wasn’t a constant reminder of Belial.
But she didn’t want to admit it. Besides, such a confession would mean nothing to this woman, who didn’t even really understand the rift between Ophelia and Morgaine.
“I didn’t back down easily,” she said finally. “I spent two years being the head of the family, nursing my mother through depression and my brother through guilt and self-loathing, when I was still too young to even legally marry. I tried to be patient, and it came to nothing. I wore myself out waiting.”
“Ophelia,” Morgaine said softly. “I’m sorry- I can’t express that enough. You’re right, and you are perfectly entitled to be angry and hold a grudge. But Ilsa also has a point. You came all this way- you said because Sieg asked you to. Even if you don’t want to forgive me, even if Rosalie refuses to come around, will you at least hear me out? For his sake?”
The half-elf looked away, hesitating, and Morgaine added imploringly, “Please Ophee.”
At the old nickname, Ophelia bit her lip. “Don’t call me that. But fine. I’ll stay in own one more day- but you’d better get that little brat to chill, because I really don’t want to deal with her bull a second time.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Morgaine assured the girl. “Ophelia, thank you.”
With a noncommittal grunt, the younger woman turned away, and walked up the stairs towards the private area of the inn. The old woman sighed, rubbing the back of her head and looking over to Clare and Ilsa.
“I’m sorry about all that. It’s… complicated.”
Clare frowned, a concerned look on her face. “It sounds like it,” she said.
Ilsa sighed, scratching the back of her head. “You… okay?” she said.
“No,” Morgaine admitted with her usual bluntness. “But it’s my own fault, so I can’t really blame Ophelia for feeling the way she does. Frankly I’m surprised she came out here at all- I don’t think anyone but Sieg could have talked her into it, the two of them have gotten very close since their father died.”
The locksmith grinned shakily. “I’ve made some pretty stupid mistakes in my lifetime, and I’m paying for them. But thank you, both of you. I don’t know if I could have calmed her down enough to get her to stay on my own.”
Clare gave a sympathetic, yet sad smile in return. “I’m just glad we could do something,” she said. “I don’t know the full story… But I do hope you two work something out. Or at least get a chance to talk to each other about it.” She sighed. “And I hope you get a chance to talk to Rosalie too. That wasn’t fair what she did.”
Ilsa nodded her agreement, looking annoyed. “Rosalie Dylas is a sweet girl but she needs to think on occasion before opening her mouth.” She smiled reassuringly at Morgaine. “I hope you can work things through with your daughter, Morgaine. Seems you both deserve a chance to be heard in full.”
Morgaine rolled her eye, a slightly tired smirk on her face. “Rosalie thinking before she acts- that’ll be the day. I think I can talk her around, I just need to get her over this jealousy complex she has. Ophelia is another can of worms entirely but… one thing at a time.”
The old woman hesitated, then hugged Ilsa, releasing her and turning to hug Clare. “I really am sorry you two had to get involved in this, but thank you for your help. It means more to me than I can really say. I promise, I’ll explain all of this to you, but I just want to work it out with Ophee first.”
Clare returned the hug in full. “I understand. Business with your family comes first. We can wait. Until then, we’ll be around.”
Ilsa looked sympathetic as she returned Morgaine’s hug. “Well, you know you can always come talk to us. I hope she comes around, Morgaine.”
Bitter Reunion - Part FourCollabed with PrincessMaddy
When Morgaine climbed the stairs of the lock shop and approached the door to Rosalie’s bedroom, she found that Mercury and Rust were both sitting outside the door. The looked up at the locksmith when she approached, rubbing against her skirts and pawing at the door to be let in- they must have wanted to check on Rosalie after the shouting match earlier.
Shaking her head at the animals, Morgaine reached out and gently knocked on the door. “Rosie? It’s me; can I please come in?”
Rosalie was sitting angrily on her bed. Her eyes were red and puffy. She had been crying a long time. She HATED Ophelia. Ophelia just wanted to ruin everything. She just wanted to kick Rosie out of Morgaine’s life! She just wanted to- Rosie closed her eyes to keep even more tears forming.
“Fine.” Rosie responded to Morgaine’s request, “If you want to.”
The locksmith pushed the door open gently, and as she did so both cats swarmed into the room around her legs, jumping onto the bed with Rosalie and rubbing against her sides. For her part, Morgaine pulled a small chair out and set it beside the bed, sitting down with a sigh.
“Before I say anything else, I want to make this much abundantly clear- I am not, nor am I ever going to throw you out or replace you. Please understand that. You say all the time I’m not your mother but… you’re like family to me regardless. I never want to hurt you like that.”
Rosie petted Mercury and Rust softly, giving them a small smile, “At least you still need me.” She whispered.
She looked up at Morgaine, “Why do you need me if you have Ophelia?” She asked, her throat tightening, “You don’t!”
Morgaine tilted her head, a very tired expression on her face. “Let’s try that in reverse. Why do you still need me if you have Lawrence?”
Rosie gave her a look, “Because you’re old and I can’t kiss you. That’s different! Lawernce is my boyfriend and you’re my….” She stopped, “My… family…” Rosie finished her thought. She’d never commit to anything else. “That’s two different things! Me and Ophelia are one thing!”
“I disagree,” Morgaine replied simply. “And it doesn’t matter what it might look like to you, because this is my needs and my heart we’re talking about, and I say my heart is big enough for both. Rosalie, Ophelia is my daughter, I gave birth to her and raised her so of course I care about her. But you’re my family too- you saved me from my own grief and taught me how to be happy again. You’re not the same as Ophelia to me, you never were and you never will be.”
Rosalie looked away, “You’re really smart sometimes.” She sighed, “Rosalie isn’t Ophelia, and Ophelia isn’t Rosalie.” Rosalie gave a small smirk “But she wishes she was. Who wouldn’t?”
Rosalie stroked Mercury, who leaned into her touch as Rust settled in her lap, purring. “You’re right. I know you are. You can have a Rosalie and a Ophelia… but... “ Rosie looked at Morgaine, “She HATES me.”
The locksmith looked down, clenching her hands in her lap with a pained expression. “Actually it’s… it’s me she hates.”
“She shouldn’t!” Rosie folded her arms, “But… I’m pretty sure she hates me!”
Morgaine shook her head. “She doesn’t hate you as much as she hates what she thinks you are- she thinks you’re a replacement for her, just like you thought she was for you. Rosalie, a long time ago when my husband died I… I left the place where we’d lived. I just walked away, because I couldn’t take the memories anymore, it hurt too much.”
She started to quiver a bit, the shame obvious on her face. “In leaving, I abandoned Sieg and Ophelia- I didn’t mean to, I thought they would be alright without me, but Ophelia felt differently. She asked me to stay, but I didn’t and… and now she hates me, because in her mind I betrayed her. And she’s not wrong.”
Morgaine squeezed her eye shut. “I was a horrible mother- I deserve whatever scorn she wants to fling at me.”
Rosalie fidgeted on her bed, “We’re kinda the same…” Rosie whispered under her breathe.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at her. I’m really, really sorry. I’ll… I’ll be nice to her! From now on! So you can make up! Ok?”
Morgaine smiled crookedly, though there were still tears shimmering in her eyes. “I hope so, Rosalie… would you be willing to try to talk to her again? Not tonight, I think we all need a chance to cool off, but in the morning. I’m not r-really sure she’ll believe me if I just say I talked to you.”
“Ok, I’ll talk to her.” Rosalie nodded, “If Sieg likes her then she can’t be all bad.” Rosalie smiled thinking of Sieg. Why couldn’t he had come instead of Ophelia? Or with Ophelia? What couldn’t Sieg be an only child? That was mean, she shouldn’t think that. She had to get along with Ophelia from now on, for Morgaine’s sake.
“I’m sure we can be friends.” Or at least civil to each other, Rosalie added mentally.
The locksmith smiled. “Thank you, Rosie.”
* * * * *
It was midmorning of the following day, and Ophelia was waiting on the dock at Lake Plume. Morgaine had sent a message to her, asking her to be there, and as much a she wasn’t thrilled about it, she agreed.
When Morgaine approached, the half-elf glanced up at her. “It’s like the dock at home, behind our old house- only going out into a lake instead of a river.”
The old woman smiled thinly. “I suppose it is.”
Ophelia stood up, looking Rosalie over. “Can we talk without yelling this time?”
“Yeah.” Rosalie mumbled, looking down, “We can. I’m… I’m sorry for yelling before. And saying all those mean things. I shouldn’t have.”
The half-elf crossed her arms, a flicker of amusement flitting across her face. “You sound less than enthusiastic to be here. Not that I don’t relate.” She sobered. “Why did you yell at me in the first place, if I may ask? I hadn’t really even said anything yet.”
“Because- Because I knew who you were and- and I thought you came here to throw me out.” Rosalie still wasn’t looking Ophelia in the eye, “I didn’t want to be thrown out and I thought- I don’t know. It was silly. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. You’re Morgaine’s daughter and she loves you and I shouldn’t have-” Rosie stopped.
“I shouldn’t have yelled.”
Ophelia’s gazed turned inwards when Rosalie asserted that Morgaine loved her, but she didn’t comment on it. Instead she looked towards the locksmith. “You know, I seem to recall that whenever we lost our tempers like that you would give us a lecture.”
“You were my kids,” Morgaine replied. She shot a smirk at Rosalie and gently prodded her. “As I am frequently reminded, I am not Rosie’s mother. She is an adult has no obligation to listen to a word I say.”
Rosie puffed out her cheeks, “That’s right, Morgaine doesn’t control me! Which is why me coming and apologizing is because I want to not because Morgaine told me to!”
The half-elf regarded Rosalie silently for a moment, then she sighed. “I can see why Sieg likes you. You’re a firecracker, even if you have a quick temper.” Ophelia looked down. “I guess that’s why you brought my mother out of her mourning when I couldn’t.”
“Ophee…” Morgaine said pleadingly.
Rosie smiled at the mention of Sieg, “Yeah, Sieg has good tastes.” Rosalie paused, “Well, she’s out of her mourning now, isn’t she? So we can all be friends! We don’t have to be mad at each other. No one is replacing anyone. I’m Rosalie and your Ophelia and there’s room for both of us.”
Ophelia looked uncomfortable at this. She made a noise that was somewhere between a moan and a growl of frustration, and with a sigh Morgaine glanced at her partner.
“Rosie, I think you can go now- this is something Ophelia and I need to discuss alone.”
“Oh, ok…” Rosalie smiled at Ophelia, “Bye!”
She then turned around with a twirl of her dress and skipped away.
As soon as the keymaker had vanished from sight, Ophelia turned to her mother. “I still get the impression she’s not my biggest fan.”
“She probably never will be,” Morgaine said with a sigh. “That was not the most auspicious of starts you two got.”
“Not really my fault, that,” Ophelia pointed out dryly.
“No, it was mine,” Morgaine admitted. “I should have taken control of the situation before it got so out of hand. I just… seeing you again, after all this time…”
The half-elf looked down, her mouth thinning. “It could have happened a lot sooner than this. The road runs both ways. And don’t you dare say you didn’t come because you were afraid of me!” she added venomously. “My mother isn’t afraid of anything!”
“You’re wrong,” the old woman said. “I’m afraid of a lot of things- I just hide it well.”
For a long time they were silent- Morgaine unsure of what to say, and Ophelia unwilling to say anything at all. It was the half-elf who finally broke the silence, switching from Kythian to Elvish.
“You’re so old now. Your hair is turning grey, your face is wrinkling, and your voice has gone rough. It’s easy to forget, living with the elves, but I guess Sieg was right… you’re only human. You don’t have much time left, do you?”
“I don’t really know,” Morgaine admitted in her own somewhat halting Elvish. “I’m hale and hearty enough, for the time being, but I’m already older than a lot of people live to be. I’m no noble, living on a rich diet that will keep me going into my sixties or seventies.”
“Then I’ll get to the point,” Ophelia said bluntly. “Give me one good reason why I should forgive you for abandoning us after our father died, for leaving me to deal with a broken, half insane wreck of a brother when I was only sixteen years old, and for not once making any effort to apologize to me, for over a decade.”
The old woman was silent for a long time, her lone good eye full of immeasurable pain. Finally, she looked up and met Ophelia’s eyes squarely. “I can’t do that. There is no good reason for what I put you through. I can list the excuses I’ve been feeding myself until I’m blue in the face, but it won’t make a difference. You’re my daughter, and I know my daughter well enough to know she’s far too intelligent to accept excuses. After all this time, you would be well within your rights never to forgive me at all.”
She shook her head. “And honestly, I don’t want forgiveness. What I did to you and your brother was inexcusable. But… believe me when I say, I’ve suffered for my decision. Every day I’ve missed you, but my own fear of rejection kept me from acting on it.”
Ophelia was quivering, her face twisted with rage and anguish. “So what- you don’t want to be forgiven, so what do you want then? To be punished?”
“Maybe I deserve that,” Morgaine admitted. “But no. What I really want, Ophelia is a second chance. I can’t undo the mistakes of the past, but maybe I can learn from them. M-maybe...”
She choked on a sob, and held out her hands imploringly. “Please, Ophee, please… I won’t ask you to forgive me, but please let me try again. I just… want to h-hold my little girl.”
The half-elf looked down at her mother, then looked away, squeezing her eyes shut. “I want so badly to hate you. I want to not care when I look at that missing eye, or at how old you’ve gotten. I w-want to walk away, so you can n-never hurt me again.”
Tears began to overflow Ophelia’s closed eyelids, and she sobbed. “But I can’t. It’s n-not fair, after everything you did to me, everything you p-put me through, why do I s-still need you?”
She fell to her knees, her eyes streaming, and Morgaine immediately knelt beside her, putting her arms around her daughter’s neck. “Ophee, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” she rasped around tears of her own. “I wish there was some way I could fix this, I just, I can’t… I’m sorry, sweety, I’m so sorry.”
“M-mama,” the half-elf moaned, leaning into the old woman’s arms. “Why did you go, why did you leave me all alone, I w-wasn’t ready.”
“I was stupid and selfish,” Morgaine said, burrowing her face into Ophelia’s shoulder. “I was a horrible mother, Ophee, I still am. A mother s-should never make their baby c-cry.”
“You, you adopted that brat, you replaced me, you couldn’t stand how much I reminded you of P-papa.”
The locksmith shook her head. “Even if I miss your father terribly, I could never hold it against you. I thought it was for the best, I thought you’d be better off without me because I was so miserable all the time, I didn’t want to hold you back- I was stupid. But Rosalie isn’t a replacement Ophee, she’s not you. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t missed you, and Rosie can’t ever fill that gap. I need you as much as you say you need me. I was just too much of an idiot to see it until it was too late.”
Ophelia didn’t answer- she was too choked with weeping to get a single coherent word out. But slowly, falteringly, she lifted her arms, and wrapped them around her mother’s chest. Morgaine’s grip tightened, and so did Ophelia’s.
“I love you, Ophee.”
“I love you too, Mama.”
* * * * *
At length, the two of them finally separated. They didn’t speak at first, just sat togetherr on the dock and stared out over the water- as they’d done so many times when the half-elf was a child in Nid’aigle. Ophelia sighed, looking out over the water of Lake Plume. “You’re not coming home, are you?”
“My home is here now, Ophee,” Morgaine said gently. “I have a life in Medieville, and friends. I won’t make the same mistake twice- I won’t abandon them.”
“What about me?” the half-elf demanded. “Are you going to abandon me again?”
“No, of course not,” Morgaine said sternly. “I’ll come to visit you and your brother in Nid’aigle, and you both are always welcome here. But we’ve our own lives to live. We can’t go back to how things used to be, much as we may want to. It’s been too long, and too much has changed. But we’ll always be family, and no matter what happens I’ll always drop whatever I’m doing if you need me.”
Ophelia looked angry for a minute more, then she shook her head. “You’re right- you usually are. But I don’t want to just leave you like this, not… not after I finally…”
The locksmith’s expression softened, and she hugged her daughter again. “Why don’t you stay a while then? Meet my friends here in Medieville. You got off to a rocky start with Clare and Ilsa but I think they’d be game for a do-over. And there’s Aira, Leif, Kirin, Ambrose-”
“Sheesh, you really have gotten popular haven’t you?” The half-elf remarked, quirking an eyebrow. “Alright, sure. I think I can get two weeks off work, or thereabouts. Just… Can we take it slow? Please? I’m…”
“A little raw still?” Morgaine guessed shrewdly, and Ophelia nodded. “I’d have expected nothing less. I hurt you badly, and that wound’s been festering for a long time. It’s not going to heal in the course of one conversation. But at least we’ve finally made a start.”
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Post by Shinko on Aug 25, 2014 20:05:07 GMT -5
Alternate Universe StoriesStories on this post are set in alternate universes, which means they are not canon for the main storyline. There are at present two main alternate universes I might post stories for; Countryswap AU - A universe in which the characters from Kyth are instead all Courdonian, and were raised in the culture of the slave nation of Courdon. My Countryswap fics are posted on the master thread for that AU, and you may read them there. Countryswap Crossover AU - A story developed between myself, Celestial, and a few others, which involves the Countryswap version of my character Sieg being magically transported to the canon version of Bern. What would happen? Stories that belong to the Crossover AU will be labeled as such- if there is no label, the story is just a generic what-if elseworld story not attached to a bigger collaboration. Culture Shock - Countryswap Crossover AU Sieg was floating on something very soft, like a cloud… There was a haze over his thoughts, like when he’d been punished severely and slipped into semi-consciousness, except this haze wasn’t an unpleasant one. One the contrary, between the sensation of softness all around him and the half-doze, he was completely comfortable, as he couldn’t remember ever having been before in his life. Befuddled, he opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was a round white something in his peripheral vision, and he wondered fleetingly if he was floating on a cloud after all. He pushed himself up by the elbows to look down at the object, and realized that it wasn’t a cloud- it was a pillow. And a light resistance he felt on his shoulders as he pushed himself up was a blanket.
He was in a bed.
The soft mattress and warm sheets, so comfortable just a moment before, now felt almost like a thousand tiny nails jamming themselves into the half-elf’s skin. Sieg felt a brief flare of wild panic, and flung himself sideways and off the bed. In the process he got himself tangled in the blanket, and ended up crashing to the floor with a very loud thump. Pain lit up his arm and hip as he landed on them, but it was negligible to the punishment he would surely get if his master or one of the overseers caught him here. Slaves never slept in beds!
He was still trying to disentangle himself from the blanket when the quiet click of someone turning a doorknob made him freeze like a rabbit in the sights of a hawk. The door to the room he was in opened, and a familiar face peered inside at him.
“Sieg? What happened, are you alright?” Lord Ambrose asked, looking down at him with concern. The half elf managed to kick himself free of the bed sheets and knelt before his master’s younger brother.
“I-I’m sorry Lord Ambrose, I don’t know how I got here, m-my master is surely furious that I’ve been gone so long, I have to-”
“Hush,” Ambrose interrupted, kneeling down and putting a gentle hand on the half-elf’s shoulder. “Calm down, Sieg. I brought you here, remember? You’re not in Courdon anymore, you’re in Kyth, you’re free, you’re safe. It’s alright.”
Sieg stared at Ambrose for a moment as if he’d spoken a foreign tongue. But there was a clarity and strength in the elderly nobleman’s eyes that he wasn’t used to, and after a moment he did remember. The half-elf had been returning to his master after delivering some documents to a guest in the castle when he’d been hit by strange dizzy spell. Everything around him had blurred and gone white, and the next thing he’d known he’d been lying on the flagstone floor with Grand Duke Alain and Lord Ambrose looking down at him. But not his Grand Duke Alain or Lord Ambrose. These ones were similar enough in appearance and mannerism to confuse and terrify him, but different enough that even after a brief conversation it was obvious they were not the same ones he had served in Courdon for ten years.
This Alain addressed him by name, not as “half-breed” or “half-elf” or “you.” This Alain spoke to him with courtesy; though his voice was still cool and distant it was not condescending or cruel. Even more bafflingly, when this Alain looked at the scarred, skinny mongrel cowering and genuflecting at his feet, there had been an emotion that Sieg hadn’t recognized at all in the Grand Duke’s eyes. It didn’t translate to his face of course, Alain almost never wore his emotions so openly, but for a noble’s personal slave it was important to learn to read their moods, however subtle. Sieg could detect the faint shifts in Alain’s eyes, voice, and posture that were all he allowed himself to show of his emotions, and there had been a light in the noble’s eyes when Sieg dared to look up at them that had been frighteningly unfamiliar. Was it… dared he imagine it might be… concern?
And for all that Lord Ambrose had always been very kind, his behavior had been equally baffling. His first impulse upon seeing Sieg crumpled on the floor had been to kneel beside him and prop him up on one knee, a gesture that had made the only semi-conscious hybrid freeze in mindless panic. Being touched or grabbed by a nobleman almost always proceeded some sort of painful punishment, and there was no doubt in his mind he’d be given something horrifically painful for being found unconscious in the middle of the hallway. He’d calmed only marginally when he realized the man holding him was Lord Ambrose, because Alain had been standing right there and surely, surely he was going to be beaten. His palms and the backs of his hands were covered in welts where he’d been lashed just the day before because he stumbled and spilled something on a visiting dignitary. There was a raw, open wound on the back of his right hand that cracked and bleed when he moved it wrong. This fresh on his mind, Sieg had trembled, instinctively cowering into Ambrose’s chest when Alain spoke to him. This only made the younger Stallion brother more concerned and more overt in his attempts to calm and sooth Sieg.
They’d seemed as confused by him as he was by them. There was clear recognition in their eyes when they looked at his face, and they addressed him by name- or at least Alain did, for some reason Ambrose had called him something else for a while until Sieg corrected him- “Bray-um.” For reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom they’d both been using the honorific “Sir,” which in his experience was reserved exclusively for knights.
After not very long, however Alain at least to begin addressing him as if he were a stranger. Probably for the best, since for all intents and purposes he was, at least to them. It had taken the better part of an hour or two for them to work out from his fearful, faltering answers to their questions who he was and where he’d come from. Alain had been angry when Sieg asserted that he was a slave to House Stallion, insisting that House Stallion did not keep slaves. That anger had only terrified Sieg more, and it had only been through the joint efforts of Ambrose’s gentle comfort and coaxing and Alain’s implacable interrogation that eventually they’d come to an understanding of who Sieg was and what it meant. Not that Alain’s explanation had made much sense to the poor, frightened half-elf. A different world? Two different House Stallions, one that kept slaves and one that didn’t? What was a Kyth?
And yet, despite his being a stranger, despite the fact that he wore the brand of a slave on his shoulder and they could have made a fortune shipping him back to Coudon as an escapee, once they’d satisfied themselves talking to him Alain had gone off somewhere else. By that point Sieg had been completely drained emotionally from the terror of being directly interrogated by Alain for so long and the confusion of everything he’d ever known suddenly being flipped on it’s head. The emotional exhaustion, combined with his weakened physical state from semi-starvation and a still healing injury, had left him barely coherent. Normally this would have mooted nothing- he’d had to work his normal duties in much worse shape than this, and fully expected to do just that now.
Instead, Lord Ambrose had brought him into this room, which he explained was an unoccupied guest room, and told him to get some rest. Rest? He couldn’t rest, he’d insisted, he needed to work. An idle slave would be punished severely for loafing. And besides, slaves didn’t sleep in beds, they slept on the floor. Maybe on a carpet of straw if they were lucky, though Sieg had not personally ever been that lucky. But Ambrose had only explained again that Sieg was not a slave anymore, he was a guest. What was more, he was an unwell guest- he needed to recuperate, because he was badly undernourished, hurt, and exhausted.
That had been an argument Sieg was doomed to lose. He was already swaying from fatigue, and even though Ambrose had always been kind to him it still took every ounce of willpower in Sieg to force himself to express a disagreement with him verbally. He was a noble. You just didn’t argue with nobles. Ambrose’s insistence was gentle, but firm, and eventually Sieg had surrendered to the inevitable and allowed himself to be guided into the bed. He must have been weaker than even he’d realized, because as soon as he allowed himself to really relax a bit and appreciate how soft the mattress was, he’d fainted dead away.
As these memories flooded back, the panic of half-awake confusion abated. Sieg allowed himself the faintest of relieved sighs, his muscles loosening under Ambrose’s hand. He settled a bit so that he was sitting on the floor instead of kneeling on it.
“How long?” he asked, his voice somewhat hoarse- he’d talked more during the interview with the two brothers than he usually did in an entire week, and his throat wasn’t used to the exercise.
“About four hours; it’s late afternoon,” Ambrose answered. “I was actually just coming by to check on you again. Are you feeling any better?”
Sieg nodded, though he didn’t give a verbal reply. In general he didn’t talk unless he had to, because the less he spoke the less he was liable to say something that could potentially get him into trouble. Besides, slaves didn’t need to talk, talking was something a person did; slaves, especially mongrel half-elf slaves, weren’t people.
“That’s good; you looked exhausted before. I was worried, but I had the feeling you just needed some rest. I’m sorry if my brother got a little bit intense with you, but please understand he meant no harm. We only wanted to understand who you are and where you’d come from.”
Sieg gave a vague shrug at this. “It isn’t your fault, Lord Ambrose. You needn’t be concerned for me.”
“Please, just Ambrose,” the Stallion said, standing up and offering Sieg a hand to help him stand. “You don’t need to stand on ceremony with me.”
In spite of everything had had happened, and the confusion that he still hadn’t really gotten over, Sieg felt the tiniest of smiles pull at the corner of his lips. He accepted the offered hand, letting the nobleman pull him up and steer him back to the bed so he could sit on it. “The other you- the Courdonian one- he said something similar to me when I first started working there. But I can’t, it… it wouldn’t be right, especially if someone else overheard.”
Ambrose shook his head as he settled into a small armchair on a few feet away from the bed. “On the contrary, I think it would surprise more people to hear me being addressed as such. I’ve never felt like much of a lord, Sieg, for all that I technically have the title.”
The half-elf shook his head, hugging his scarred, mutilated arms to his chest. Those marks represented years of painful conditioning to be absolutely servile to nobles; breaking habits that had been ingrained by such painful means was not as simple as all that. Ambrose clasped his fingers and let his hands rest in his lap, an expression of sadness coming into his face as his eyes landed on the brand on Sieg’s right shoulder.
“I’ve sent a servant to the tailors and the cobblers to see if there is any spare clothing in roughly your size. It won’t be exact without a proper fitting, but you need something to wear for the time being since it’s too cool in Bern for such short sleeves, even in summer.”
Sieg glanced sideways at his bare arms in surprise. This thought had honestly not occurred to him, though now that he thought about it he realized the room was a lot cooler than he was used to. Not uncomfortably so, but enough to further prove that wherever he was now, it was not Courdon.
“I’d wondered,” he admitted. “I’ve never seen you in a cloak before. Or… or in those colors. You usually wore blue.”
Ambrose looked down at his clothing- it was true, aside from his red cloak and Stallion pin he was not dressed in the colors of his birth house or any of the other colors he might have picked for himself. Instead, he was in grey and purple. He smiled a little at this. “They are the colors of House Ascension, the ruling house of Kyth. I wear them because normally I work for his majesty King Galeteo in the capital, as an advisor. I’m actually only here in Bern now visiting for a short while.”
Sieg’s mouth fell open in astonishment. If it had shocked him to see how warmly the Stallions regarded each other- and it most definitely had- it left him completely thunderstruck to imagine Ambrose in the position of being anyone’s advisor, let alone the King. His concept of nations and governments was patchy at best, but even he understood that the king was essentially the head of all the nobles in the kingdom.
There was an odd sadness in Ambrose’s eyes again when Sieg gave him that look. He sighed softly, shifting somewhat in his chair. “Sieg, if I might ask, if it wouldn’t bother you to talk about… what is my Courdonian self like? When you spoke to us before you talked much of my brother and your service to him, but you said little of me.”
Sieg looked down at his maimed and bleeding hands, trying to figure out how to say what he had until now only felt. He wasn’t used to trying to frame his thoughts in an organized and coherent way, let alone express those thoughts out loud. “You… the other you, was always very kind to me. To all the slaves. You were the only person who made me feel like I was… like it was okay for me to exist.”
He shook his head, clenching his hands on the blankets despite the fact that it made them throb with pain. “But you… you were always so lonely too. Up in a room all by yourself. Tired, and lonely and afraid. I could never stay very long, because I had duties, but I always wished there was something I could do. It… it didn’t seem right, for someone that nice to be so alone that he had to talk to mongrel abomination for company.”
“Sieg, you aren’t an abomination,” Ambrose said forcefully, startling the half-elf. Catching himself, he added more gently, “And I’m sure your company meant the world to the Courdonian version of me, even if it was only for a short while.”
“But I couldn’t help you!” Sieg objected. “When, when my master was angry, he would do horrible things to you. Say horrible things. That, that you were a dishonor to the name Stallion, that you were mad, and worse. And, and he would strike you sometimes too…”
Sieg clamped his mouth shut, flinching in on himself when he realized what he’d just blurted. Speaking so disrespectfully of his master would almost surely have earned him a whipping, if he were reported. Ambrose, for his part, looked stricken. He leaned back in his chair heavily. “I… I see.”
“I’m sorry, Lord Ambrose I’m sorry,” Sieg said softly.
“No, it’s quite alright,” the Stallion said unhappily. “I am the one who brought it up. Thank you for your honesty, Sieg, I do appreciate it. But perhaps we should move on to lighter topics. And please, do call me Ambrose.”
Sieg averted his gaze. He didn’t think he’d ever quite have the nerve to do any such thing, but he didn’t want to openly refuse just now. That miserable look on Ambrose’s face was like a knife in the half-elf’s chest.
There was a knock at the door, and Sieg instinctively lurched up and scuttled over it before Ambrose had time to react. He opened the door, positioning himself behind it and out of sight to let the newcomer in as he’d been trained to do. A middle-aged man in Stallion colors walked in, his expression reflecting surprise when he saw Ambrose apparently alone in the room.
“I… I brought the clothing from the tailor for your guest…” he said hesitantly, looking around for the missing “guest.” Ambrose sighed, looking directly at the half-elf.
“Please come out Sieg, and sit down. You’re a guest here, you don’t need to open the doors for our servants.”
Wincing at the not-quite reprimand, Sieg obediently came out from behind the door and resumed his seat on the bed again. The servant, upon catching sight of him, gasped in shock and horror at the sight of all his scars, broken crooked nose, and raw welts. But the servant quickly throttled down the reaction, turning back to Ambrose.
“These were the best I could get on short notice,” he said, offering a bundle of cloth to the nobleman apologetically. “But I did schedule a proper fitting for him for the day after tomorrow.”
“Thank you very much Lyall, you may go,” Ambrose replied, taking the clothing. With a polite nod to Ambrose and a sympathetic glance at Sieg, he left the room. The nobleman opened one of the folded garments, revealing a simple long-sleeved white linen shirt, brown cotton trousers, and boots. “I’m sorry, it isn’t much, but it’s more substantial in this climate than what you have now. Why don’t you try it on?”
Ambrose left the room while Sieg pulled on the new garments. They were… very odd. He’d never in his life worn any kind of sleeve, and it was a novelty to have cloth resting against the skin of his arms. All three of the articles were a few sizes too big, thanks in part to Sieg’s short height and also to his extreme skinniness. He knocked on the door to let Ambrose know he could come back in, and with an amused smile the nobleman helped Sieg tie up the sleeves and tuck in the shirt so they were less visibly baggy.
“Hopefully you’ll fill it out a little better after you’ve put some weight on- speaking of which, are you hungry?”
At this question Sieg gave Ambrose a look of such unconcealed longing he shook his head. “Of course you are, that was a foolish question. Come on, let’s see about getting you something to eat.”
Sieg trailed after the younger Stallion brother, actually enthusiastic about something for the first time since he’d arrived in this strange backwards place. He’d spent his entire life undernourished, to the point where hunger was a more or less constant gnaw at his gut that never entirely went away.
Eventually they arrived at what Sieg assumed must have been the kitchens, and after a brief conversation with the cooks Ambrose turned back to Sieg. “I’m afraid for the time being we’ll have to keep your diet limited to simple things, since it could well make you sick to feed you too much that your body isn’t ready for.”
Sieg wasn’t sure what he was supposed to make of this statement, so he just nodded. After a short while, the cook returned with a plate that had something small and yellow on it- a plain omelette.
“L-Lord Ambrose, I-” Sieg started, but the Stallion interrupted him.
“Just Ambrose, Sieg, please.”
The half-elf winced. “I… I can’t eat this. This is food for people well above my station, slaves don’t get food like this.”
“You aren’t a slave anymore, Sieg. You have every right to eat just as well as the king himself does.”
Sieg swallowed hard. If he was caught eating something like this… He’d seen people thrashed for taking lesser things. Stealing fresh leftovers, for example, or filching cold finger foods from outgoing trays during dinner service. While slaves with hard, manual tasks sometimes ate marginally better, for an errand boy like Sieg meals consisted of gruel, stale bread crusts, and scant leftovers about to go bad anyway. This was an entire fresh meal, and he was being invited to eat it all on his own.
But he didn’t know how to explain all of this in a way that would make sense. It was just jumbled up in his head, a confused haze of fear and bad associations for which he had no words.
Ambrose put a gentle hand on Sieg’s shoulder. “Sieg, it’s alright. I had this made especially for you. No one is going to be upset with you for eating it.”
“Master-” he objected, but Ambrose pulled the younger man into a hug.
“Your master is not here, Sieg. And though they may share a face, my brother is not that man. I can promise you that, beyond a shadow of doubt. You are not a slave anymore Sieg; you are not in Courdon. You are free.”
Free… he wasn’t even sure he really knew what that word meant. What did people do, who weren’t slaves? He’d never observed them to try and find out, not when tardiness with his tasks might mean a punishment.
Before he had time to really mull this over, the plate was pushed gently by firmly into his hands. “Eat, Sieg. Trust me, it will make you feel better.”
His hands trembling, the half breed took the fork and used it to tentatively cut off a small corner of the omelette. He winced a bit as the scabs on the back if his hand cracked and bled with this motion, but he ignored the pain and proceeded to pop the piece of omelette in his mouth. It was…
“It’s fantastic,” he said with absolute sincerity. He ate it a little more quickly now, though blood was starting to drip from the back of his hand onto the plate. Ambrose looked sad again at this.
“I should have taken you to have that wound properly looked at, I’m sorry Sieg. As soon as you’re finished eating we’ll see the physician. Hopefully they can give you something to make it hurt less.”
The half-elf only shook his head, his mouth too full of egg for him to reply even if he’d wanted to. Food, real food, a bed, someone as legitimately concerned for him as Ambrose obviously was… he welcomed the pain of his wounded hand. It was proof this wasn’t all just a dream.
* * * * *
Ambrose was as good as his word, taking Sieg to have his wounded hands looked at. There wasn’t a lot the physician could do for the weals, but he did wash out the open cut- which hurt, though as was his usual habit Sieg gave no indication of it aside from an initial involuntary muscle spasm- and then applied a greenish cream to it. To the half-elf’s surprise, the cream actually made his skin feel very cool, and the pain of the lash mark receded quite a bit. The doctor explained that the salve would keep the cut from becoming infected, and that it also had “agents to numb and reduce inflammation” though Sieg had no clue what that last meant.
After that the mark was bandaged, and Sieg was instructed to keep pressure off of it as much as possible, and to be careful with the other lash marks that hadn’t broken the skin as well. The half-elf said nothing throughout this procedure, only nodding when it seemed appropriate and occasionally glancing sideways at Ambrose. Whenever the Stallion caught his gaze he gave Sieg a reassuring smile.
It was so strange, the normally skittish and broken old man giving comfort to anyone. Yet as one day in this bizarre new place turned into two, and then three and four, Sieg found himself instinctively responding to that comfort and strength, leaning on Ambrose as a pillar of support and very gradually opening up to his gentle advances. He’d already liked the Courdonian Ambrose- that made it very easy for the Kythian one to win Sieg’s fragile trust. This was fortunate, since he badly needed someone to cling to in this bizarre new place that was constantly overwhelming him with new ideas and experiences.
Not that Ambrose spent all of his time with Sieg, of course. He was in Bern to visit his family after all, and when Sieg saw how much better Ambrose got along with the other Stallions in this reality than he did in Courdon, the half-elf couldn’t possibly begrudge him. Luckily Sieg was still recuperating, and with no tasks to focus on to keep awake he found himself dozing off at regular intervals, despite his best intentions. He very quickly gave up the battle of the bed when he realized how much more deeply and restfully he slept on it.
Sieg still had to be cajoled into accepting proper food- especially as time passed and it was deemed safe for Sieg to eat more varieties of things. The feeling of being full was utterly alien, but not unwelcome, and eating real, toothsome food… There was no way a mongrel like him, slave or not, could possibly be allowed to each such wonderful things. Surely someone was going to come along and realize what sort of a creature they’d been wasting good food on.
In spite of his hesitance, the effects of improved diet began to show on him surprisingly fast. Though he was still painfully thin and weak- and it would probably take months for his weight to get up into a healthy range- his amber eyes began to take on that shimmer characteristic of elven eyes, his skin became less sallow, and by the end of his fifth day in Bern he was falling asleep noticeably less often.
As the waking hours began to outnumber the sleeping hours, Sieg found himself nervously searching for something to occupy himself. Idleness in slaves was absolutely not to tolerated, and between the boredom and the almost physically painful desire to be doing something, he started cleaning the little room that he was staying in. Even after he’d gotten it completely spotless, he only started over again- cleaning what was already clean anyway just to be doing something that looked and felt productive.
When Ambrose was with Sieg he made it a point to discourage him from doing these things. He wasn’t a slave anymore, and besides that there was a servant who they paid to clean this room. When Sieg explained, somewhat falteringly, that near pathological need to be doing something, anything productive, an oddly understanding light had come into Ambrose’s eyes… and then he’d shown Sieg his inventing.
This, perhaps not surprisingly, had awed the half-elf. He knew about Ambrose’s visions, the Courdonian Ambrose often spoke of them when he was making his one-sided conversations with Alain’s slaves. Though of course to many these bizarre recollections were evidence of the nobleman’s purported insanity, Sieg had always found them rather fascinating. Most of what Ambrose described went far beyond the scope of Sieg’s imagination, but considering his entire world had consisted of first Allendale’s manor, then Alain’s castle, stories of people and places far away were a welcome distraction.
But this… The Ambrose in Courdon had never attempted, nor hinted at bringing the things from his visions into the real world. Though Sieg could not read and only knew how to reckon well enough to count the fingers on his hands, the Stallion’s blueprints and schematics enthralled him. Ambrose explained that sometimes he would create things himself, if they were relatively small, but bigger inventions he would draw plans and schematics for before handing them over to engineers in Bern. He’d brought one such plan with him on this trip- a drawing of what he explained was a large construct that could be flooded with water, to allow a ship to be sailed into it, then drained, so that the ship was resting on dry ground. A useful device if ships needed maintenance or repairs, far easier than hauling the vessels bodily up onto shore and shoving them back into the water. As the nobleman outlined this, Sieg listened with unconcealed fascination.
Even better, when Sieg made a passing comment about wishing he could read Ambrose’s notes himself, the Stallion actually offered to teach him. And for once, the half-elf accepted eagerly. There was no real law forbidding slaves from being educated, the Courdonians just didn’t bother because it was a waste of time and resources- besides the fact that it was hard to keep an educated populace servile. But with no overt negative associations to combat with regards to learning to read, Sieg accepted the proposal almost right away.
Though Ambrose spent a great deal of time with him, Sieg saw little of Alain. This was perfectly fine as far as he was concerned. In spite of Ambrose’s reassurances, the half-elf couldn’t shake that tremor of pure animal terror that hit him whenever he spotted the Stallion patriarch. He instinctively fell to one knee whenever Alain was anywhere nearby, a habit trained into him by Baron Allendale- who would often employ a makeshift noose to strangle Sieg until he physically could not stand to reinforce the lesson. It had taken almost four years back in Courdon for him to stop feeling like he couldn’t breathe when he didn’t genuflect to Ambrose. Other nobles still had that effect on him.
He couldn’t delay the inevitable, however. After he’d been in Bern about ten days, the grand duke finally came looking for him.
The half-elf was alone at the time, sweeping invisible dust motes off the windowsill with his hands. Alain tapped the end of his cane on the floor to catch the half-elf’s attention.
“Sieg?” Alain called, and despite the fact that he’d made his presence known Sieg tensed visibly, whirling and falling to his knees. His entire body was shaking, and his pupils contracted to pinpricks of panic. “You don’t have to be afraid; I’m not going to hurt you.”
Sieg blinked, seeming to have briefly forgotten where he was. Then his eyes went dead and dull, and he stared at the floor.
“F-forgive me Mas- your grace. My master, he only s-spoke my name aloud when I had done s-something wrong. When I, when I was to be p-punished. Otherwise he just got my attention by calling me ‘half-elf’ or ‘half-breed.’”
There was a faint flicker of anger in Alain’s eyes again, and Sieg felt his heart hammering in his chest. He shrunk into himself under the weight of Alain’s gaze, not daring to lock eyes with the Stallion. After a moment of silence, the grand duke shook his head.
“I’ve no intentions of punishing you, Sieg. Unlike my Courdonian counterpart, I use your name as a courtesy. I only wanted to talk.”
Sieg gulped, but nodded. His eyes he kept firmly fixed on Alain’s boots, not daring to lift his head despite the reassurances. He found his gaze drawn to the bottom of the Stallion’s cane. His master had never carried a cane- he didn’t need one, his legs worked just fine. But this Alain didn’t really seem to need the cane either. He wasn’t leaning on it at all, just sort of walking with it like it was an accessory. Why would he…
This stream of thought was interrupted when Alain tapped the cane on the ground again, startling Sieg back into full awareness. The nobleman must have noticed his attention wandering.
“Please stand up, Sieg. While it is proper and polite to bow to a nobleman, you needn’t kneel like that.”
Hesitantly the half-elf pushed himself upright, though he kept his shoulders hunched and his head ducked submissively.
“I’ve been giving some thought to your situation,” Alain said, his voice unreadable. “On the whole, it is probably best if the true nature of your origins is kept as quiet as possible. This will keep things simpler for everyone involved, and help you to better distance yourself from that old life.”
His hands tightened around the handle of his cane as he spoke. “That being the case, House Stallion cannot simply keep caring for you out of charity. It would draw too many questions we cannot answer.”
The half-elf shrank further in on himself. Here it was- they’d finally realized what sort of pathetic creature they were wasting their efforts on. They were finally going to throw him out on the streets, where a mongrel belonged. He hunched over in a gesture that might have been a bow, but served the double-purpose of hiding his the dismay in his bright amber eyes.
Alain gave Sieg a look that he’d have sworn could see right through his skull to read the thoughts inside. “You are free now- do you know what that means?”
“No,” Sieg admitted, shifting uncomfortably. “No, not really. It’s… I never thought about it. Slaves don't think, especially not about freedom. Not if, not if they don’t want to be punished for rebellion. I always just d-did as I was told. Wondering about the free people was meaningless because they had nothing to do with my tasks.”
“As I thought. And based on what you’ve already explained, I presume you didn’t do any highly skilled tasks?”
“No Maste- your grace,” the half-elf replied, looking down at his feet. “J-just cleaning and running errands.”
Alain nodded. “So you don’t have any skills to support yourself at a job, nor do you have much of an understanding of how to function in normal society. I had suspected as much. I have come up with a possible solution that benefits all of us, though I suspect you many not particularly care for it at first. Bear in mind this is only a suggestion- you are no longer a slave and your future is yours to decide. If you do not wish to take me up on my offer, that is your right.”
So was Sieg not being thrown out then? The half-elf nodded to show that he understood what Alain was saying, though it was still distinctly odd to hear those words in his master’s voice. A choice? Slaves were not given choices, they were given orders.
“If you are agreeable to it, House Stallion can hire you as a servant and take you on as a ward. Being a ward means we would provide you with room and board, while being a servant gives you a reason to stay and a position that utilizes your… unfortunately limited skill set. But-” he added, putting a very strong emphasis on the word. “This position would be as a servant, not a slave. You would receive regular pay and days off. You will not be abused if a task is beyond your abilities or for innocent mistakes- though there may be repercussions for infractions, I can promise you will never be deliberately abused by anyone within the walls of my castle, at least not without serious consequences for the abuser. As a ward you would be under the protection of House Stallion and cared for as well as any of our charges.”
He gave Sieg a moment to digest all of this, then added, “Again, this is only a suggestion. You are free to reject it if you chose. House Stallion does not keep slaves, and as you have broken no laws we have no reason to detain you against your will. If you work here, it will be because you have decided to of your own volition, and you may resign any time you chose, provided you give enough advance notice that a replacement can be found to fill your position.”
Sieg wasn’t really sure he understood all of this. It was… so outside the scope of anything he’d ever experienced in Courdon. A job? Pay? Leaving whenever he wished? But where would he even go?
Alain was telling Sieg this was his decision, but the nobleman had already more or less admitted that if Sieg went out into the real world outside the castle he’d just be overwhelmed by it. The half-elf had no idea how to take care of himself, nor how to function as an individual. He did as he was told and accepted what was given to him- that was his lot in life, as was proper for one with elven blood.
But… but at least this way he’d have work to do, to fill that compulsive drive that had been beaten into him since childhood. And… maybe he’d still get to see Ambrose, once in a while.
He nodded. “Alright, Mast- your grace. I… if you think that is best.”
“I do,” Alain said firmly. “But what do you think?”
The half-elf winced, “I… I don’t know. Slaves, elves, they are not human. They are not to think. I c-can’t really… I don’t know what…”
He visibly grappled for a way to frame what he was trying to say. That he didn’t know how to think for himself, that he’d never really been given the option of making choices or taking initiative.
“...I am not sure what choice I have,” he finally admitted.
The grand duke’s eyes flashed with anger. “Slaves are no less human than anyone else- in many cases I would dare to say they are better men than those barbarians who pass themselves off as nobles in Courdon. And elves have as much right to life and freedom as humans do. They are no less than us for being a different species.”
He tapped his cane again. “You do have a choice, Sieg, and I am not going to make it for you. This is your life, and you have spent far too long letting other people declare how you should live it. And even if you agree now, you may change your mind at any point you chose, if you find that life here is not agreeable for you. So the question is a simple one- would you like to work as a servant in the castle?”
The half-elf flinched away from the sternness in Alain’s tone, trembling at his obvious anger. He almost instinctively blurted “Yes Master” on impulse, but managed to bite his tongue in time. Sieg had the distinct impression such a response would only further irritate the nobleman. Maybe this wasn’t the Courdonian Alain but… Sieg was still terrified of him. Working here would mean he’d be around Alain all the time, and taking orders from him. Just like before.
Only… not really. He was getting much better food here, for one thing. And sleeping in a real bed, he hadn’t realized it was possible to sleep so soundly or to wake up without being cramped. And there was Lord Ambrose; Sieg didn’t want to lose the pillar of support the younger Stallion brother had given him, not when he was already so overwhelmed.
He liked it here. And working would at least give him something to do, so that he felt like he was earning the kindness that these people were showing him.
“Yes. I… I’ll work here, your grace.”
The Ex-Slave and the Baroness - Countryswap Crossover AU Collab with Kristykimmy
Sieg had been in the Kyth for about three weeks now- officially working as a servant for about a week and a half. Once again he was wearing a uniform in Stallion colors, though this one had longer sleeves to accommodate the cooler Bernian climate. It was summer, but he'd been assured that in winter he'd be very glad of the long sleeves. He was already glad of them, because they spared him the horrified looks from people that inevitably came when they saw the scars that decorated his arms. Though they could not hide his crooked smashed in nose, facial scars, nor the numerous tiny lacerations that decorated his fingers. Those could, and did, still draw looks of horror- but oddly, they also drew looks of sympathy, something Sieg wasn't accustomed to.
He still hadn't really adjusted to the idea that he was "free" now. He'd received his first stipend from Alain the day before, and he kept wondering if someone was going to realize that a mistake had been made and take the money back from him. Or worse, accuse him of stealing it. The half-elf was now taking his second "day off" since starting- and finding himself rather at a loss for what to do with himself. Ambrose was busy, talking to some engineers about his invention idea, and people Sieg had become acquainted with among the servants were either also off- and had gone out into the city- or were working and didn't have time to help him. Most didn't yet realize that he wouldn't have a clue how to spend his days off.
For lack of anything else to do with himself, he'd wandered out into the gardens. There was a large pond filled with beautiful multicolored fish that he'd discovered a few days prior, and he wanted to get a closer look at it. Water was rare in Courdon, the climate being as arid as it was, and with it being such a precious commodity ornamental ponds were almost unheard of.
As he drew closer the half-elf hesitantly knelt down, putting a single scared finger into the clear water. A fish swam up, it's mouth flapping closed over the digit- though it seemed to have no teeth, as this experimental "bite" did not hurt. It actually made Sieg smile, just a little, and he sat down at the water's edge to prod at the fish some more.
Lucinda had noticed the new servant that had suddenly appeared at Destrier Castle. She hadn't been told anything about him, but she assumed that he must have come with Ambrose from Medieville. Ambrose certainly seemed fond of the young man; he spent a good deal of time with him.
Lucinda had crossed paths with him in the halls; he was skittish and always moved quickly when she crossed paths with him. There had never been time to even say good day before he was out of sight. The most noticeable thing about him was his nose. Lucinda knew that the strange look of it was from it being broken once in the past. Broken noses often never healed quite right. There were other scars on his face, which led her to wonder what he had been in the past.
It was a nice day in Destrier. Summer wasn't quite as warm there as it was in Medieville, but she was used to the climate and liked it. She stepped out into the gardens, meandering around. It was a little lonelier than it had used to be. Kirin was gone, Isabelle was busier with every passing year, and she shuddered to think of spending time with Garrick. The once indifferent relationship with her uncle had soured since getting a good look at his true character in Medieville.
She came to a pond and found the elf kneeling on the edge of it, his fingers in the water. She crept up on him, afraid of him darting off if he saw her coming like he always did. She came up from behind him and stood up on tip-toe to look into the pond; the fish were nipping at his fingers. She noticed for the first time that his hands were as scarred as his face.
“You are fond of the fish?” she asked. “They are lovely.”
Sieg heard the cultured female voice and jerked in panic, yanking his hands up out of the water. He turned to see Baroness Lucinda, Alain's granddaughter. He shifted position so that he was kneeling, keeping his amber eyes fixated on the grass in front of him. He had to remind himself that he was on a sanctioned day off and he was not in trouble for not working. It was hard to get his gut to agree with his head on that point, and he found himself trembling a little.
"M'lady, I d-did not see you," he said softly. Gulping, he added, "Ah, y-yes, the fish are... they're nice. There aren't many where I come from. There's not enough water."
Flinching back he added, "But, but if you wanted to enjoy the pond, I can take myself elsewhere. Forgive me, I, I hadn't thought I would be interrupting."
Lucinda was surprised by the elf's reactions to her comment on the fish. The kneeling, the startled attitude, the offer to leave all caught her by surprise. She wondered now if the way he'd always fled from her in the Castle had been him actually fleeing her, not simply being to busy to stop and exchange greetings.
She bent down and place a hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him.
“No! No, of course not. You're welcome to the pond; you're not interrupting anything. I suppose you know that I am Lucinda. You're the new servant Ambrose brought with him, are you not? What is your name? Do you come from Corvus?” It was the hottest place in Kyth she could think of, and she believed that most elves lived there. “I do not know any elves. Stay and talk with me.”
When Lucinda touched the half-elf's shoulder, his entire body went tight as a drum and he squeezed his eyes shut with an involuntary flinch. Physical contact almost always proceeded some sort of punishment in Courdon, and what was intended as a comforting gesture just made him tremble harder. He had to force himself to think clearly, so he could answer Lucinda's question.
"I... I am S-Sieg. I don't really know where Corvus is. Mast- his grace, he says the place I came from is c-called Courdon? And ah, I'm," his voice became very timid as he added, "I'm not really an elf. I'm, I'm half-elf."
He glanced sideways. "I'm sorry."
Lucinda hastily withdrew her hand from Sieg's shoulder. She glanced at his scarred face and hands again, all of it making sense. He was a freed slave, like Xavier.
She sat down next to him, careful to move slowly and not accidentally brush him. She leaned over and looked at the fish in the water, trying to look nonthreatening, as she assumed all nobles must look threatening to a former slave.
“Well, let's not talk about Courdon, Sieg. It is full of noblemen who are curs and despots. Half-elf is still an elf, isn't it? I suppose if you were raised in Courdon you do not know much of your culture? I believe Grandfather knew some elves some time ago. Perhaps he can tell you more about them,” she said, flicking her fingers in the water. “Have you seen much of Destrier, yet?”
Sieg watched in his peripheral vision as Lucinda slowly shifted into a sitting position. His tightened muscles relaxed a bit, though he still didn't dare move out of his own kneeling position until she let him. Not if he didn't want to start wheezing and gagging.
Lucinda's comment about the nobles of Courdon startled Sieg. It wasn't unlike the opinions Alain had expressed, now that he thought about it. Evidently there was a great deal of contempt for the Courdonians here, though fortunately it didn't seem to extend to their slaves. At her question about elves, however, he shook his head.
"N-no, elves are..." he gulped, misery plain in his voice as he went on. "Elves are subhuman, and as a hybrid I am an abominable mix of human and subhuman. A, a freak of nature."
He clenched his hands into fists, his eyes dull and lifeless. "I was born in slavery, my mother was a peasant who had an affair with an elven slave. My father and his master raised me. Papa, he did tell me a little bit about elves but... never much, because to discuss the old ways before elves became slaves is forbidden."
He wasn't sure how to take the knowledge that Alain knew some elves. Were they also escapees from Courdon? They must have been, he'd always been told the subhuman races were totally subjugated, as was proper. He didn't think he'd ever have the nerve to ask the grand duke about it, however. Sieg couldn't quite shake that tremor of pure terror he got looking at the too-familiar face and hearing the too-familiar voice.
Instead he addressed Lucinda's final question. "I, I have not left the castle much. Lord Ambrose, he took me to the tailors be fitted for my uniform, and to a... um... I forget what it was called, but someone who treated a cut on my hand. But no, other than that I haven't r-really gone anywhere. I don't... um..." he struggled to think of how to explain what he was trying to say. "I don't, don't really... know where I should go. I've n-never had the time for going places for no reason. It is very... very strange."
Lucinda listened as Sieg talked. She pulled her fingers out of the water and flicked the droplets off her fingers with angry motions.
“Typical Courdonian rubbish, filling your head with such lies,” she said, feeling the familiar disdain for them welling up in her. She had been afraid of Courdon before the bloody coronation, but after that event and actually meeting them, the fear had been replaced with repulsion for them and their slave-culture. “The elves are a proud race who are every bit our equal. Being mixed race is nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever the Courdonians told you are lies.”
She turned to look at him, smiling, afraid that she might have frightened him with her anger. “They have a city in Corvus. We have friends in House Jade; I'm sure we could at some point arrange for you visit it and be educated about your history.”
“As for going somewhere on your day off, you could just wander around the city. See what attracts your attention. The markets are always full of life and interesting wares. The river is beautiful on days when the weather is pleasant. Still, you've not been here long, so take your time if you're reluctant. You need not push yourself to try something you are uncomfortable with.”
Lucinda's description of the elves as a "proud race" made Sieg frown. He'd never seen any elves except for his father and one or two others in Courdon, and they had been anything but proud. Hunched, beaten, afraid... but certainly not proud. And of course his mixed heritage was shameful, everyone back home had always said so. Except Lord Ambrose, but he was just kind to everyone. This strange, wonderful place where he was allowed to sleep in a warm bed and have money and time off... they were too perfect, too wonderful, they just couldn't understand what sort of a monster he was.
He shuddered, wondering if they'd throw him out for real when it finally dawned on them. Surely, surely they could not remain ignorant of the horrid nature of the creature they were sheltering forever.
Lucinda turned to him, smiling and offering to take him to an elf city in this "Corvus" place. But... but that was impossible. There could be an entire city of free elves. He looked up, actually meeting the young noblewoman's green eyes briefly in his surprise. He hastily averted his gaze again when he realized his own impertinence.
"I... I don't know," he said evasively. "There is so much already I don't understand. Nothing here is like I'm used to."
Sieg didn't dare believe her. He didn't dare get his hopes up that maybe, just maybe the Courdonians had been wrong, that there were free elves. It just couldn't be possible.
His legs were starting to cramp a little from holding his genuflection for so long, but it wasn't as if that was something he wasn't used to. It was still preferable to not being able to breathe.
"As to the city, I...," his voice became very small. "Everyone stares so, at my face and my hands... and my ears. Back then, before, it was not uncommon for merchants to assume I would try to steal from them. They would throw stones at me, and call me a mongrel and a subhuman. And everything in this place is so strange, I can't... I don't... like to be alone, surrounded by strangers. Lord Ambrose is the, the only person here that I've s-spoken to much."
Until he said it the half-elf hadn't realized just how lonely he felt when Ambrose wasn't around, but now that he'd been forced to verbalize himself coherently he realized that he was. He'd always been too miserable from a thousand other things in Courdon to really register it, but now that he was eating and sleeping better and not being worked to death, other less pressing points of unhappiness were worming their way to the surface. Deeply suppressed feelings of profound friendlessness had gnawed at his heart since his father's death, and now those holes were very deep and very painful.
Lucinda noticed Sieg wobbling slightly and looking tired of kneeling like he was. She had assumed that the kneeling was a reflex, but the fact that he didn't alter his position bothered her.
“Why don't you sit?” Lucinda asked, wondering why he was holding the strange position. “You look very uncomfortable.”
She felt so much pity upon hearing him talk about the treatment he had received in Courdon. “No one will treat you like that here. On the contrary, I think they will be fascinated by you. Elves are rare, and half-elves rarer still. Still, take your time, then. The city will still be here whenever your more confident. Uncle Ambrose is a busy man; I only see him half as often as I like when he is here, so if you're lonely, you may come spend your spare hours talking with me. I have music lessons, which you may sit in on and listen if you like, and I go down into the city often, but otherwise I most often am free. I mean what I say; you are welcome to come and see me when you like.”
When Lucinda invited him to sit, he gratefully let himself sink out of the genuflection. He couldn't quite suppress a soft gasp of pain as his cramped legs protested to being shifted, but the relief upon sitting was immediate and gratifying.
"It wouldn't have been proper, until you invited me to do so," he replied simply. "I did not wish to be impertinent. I... I would have been more uncomfortable if I hadn't waited."
Though he didn't quite smile, his expression gentled somewhat at Lucinda's generosity. He'd never had much to do with her Courdonian counterpart- he'd see that girl in passing but she never would have deigned to so much as glance at a slave, let alone talk to one. But it was clear that like everyone else in this strange place, the Kythian Lucinda was very different from the Courdonian one.
"I thank you, m'lady. You are most kind to this unworthy." he looked out at the water, rubbing his arm where the brand was self-consciously. "I... I had never thought it was possible before, that... that people could show compassion to one such as me."
With a very shy, sheepish smile he asked, "If... if you don't mind me asking, what sorts of music lessons do you have? Do you play an instrument?"
“Sieg, you don't have to do that here. We don't want you to kneel; we're not Courdonians. I understand that you're accustomed to it, but I hope you'll try to break the habit. You're not unworthy, and you are most entitled to compassion after what you've clearly been through,” Lucinda said, glad to see him sitting. “I should speak to Great-Uncle about having you introduced to Xavier. He was once a slave, to Lord Duval. He's a member of House Jade. He might be able to help you accustom yourself to your freedom.”
Lucinda shifted her thoughts from Sieg's situation to the question he had asked. “I sing and I play the harp. I've been taking lessons since I was twelve, but I've only become serious in the last year. I have become much better than I was. My father taught me to sing when I was little, but I didn't practice much after he died. He played the piano and sung. I'm told he was quite good. Do you have any interest in music?”
The half-elf winced. "Ah, no m'lady, it's... I just... I can't not kneel. It's... if I don't, my throat closes, and I can't breathe. It's been like that for years. My first master, he trained me to be that way."
Sieg didn't know who "Lord Duval" was, but the mention of another former slave intrigued him. But House Jade... he'd heard that before, he was sure he had...
Dismissing it, he turned to the more pleasant conversation topic. "I don't really know- I... I didn't have time, to try things. Some of the field slaves sing, I've been told, but I was a house slave. House slaves are meant to be quiet, and not disturb their masters. But I, I have heard music, and it's nice. My father taught me some songs in elvish, though I don't know the language so I don't really know what the songs are about. But I liked listening to him sing, even if he wasn't good at it. I have liked music, when I've heard it, though usually I could not linger to appreciate it. But, but if you would like to show me your music, I think I'd like that."
Lucinda sighed and twisted her fingers. “That's terrible. The Courdonians treat humans and elves worse than they treat the mutts in the street. Great-Uncle says it won't last forever, but every day is too long.”
She brightened at his story of his father teaching him elvish songs. “I haven't heard any elvish songs; it must have been lovely. I wish I could remember listening to my father sing. I would enjoy playing and singing for you, Sieg.”
* * * * *
Sieg's heart was hammering wildly as he bolted through the corridors of Destrier castle. He'd been running errands for the bookkeeper, a man named Seamus Dun, who he'd met a few days ago. Seamus was apparently fairly new to the castle service as well. He'd only been in his position about two years, since the previous bookkeeper left to work for Lord Ambrose in the capital. In spite of his instinct to be wary of most new people, Sieg found himself warming to Seamus. He was an affable fellow very patient with the half-elf's skittish behavior. However, it was easy to lose track of time in the records room where the bookkeeper worked. It wasn't until another servant poked his head in the room to announce that lunch would be ready in an hour that Sieg realized he was going to be late for an appointment with the physician.
With a hasty apology and goodbye to Seamus, he darted out into the halls. In truth he wasn't that late, five minutes at most, but even one minute late would surely earn him a beating...
He finally made it to the great hall, panting from the exertion, and gasped, "I'm... sorry Lord Ambrose... lost track of..."
The half-elf stopped talking when he looked up. The person waiting for him was not Ambrose; it was Lucinda. He was so startled that he stared at her motionlessly a fraction of a second too long, and felt that horrible sensation of his throat closing. Already short on breath from running, he gagged, falling to his knees immediately to free his airway.
"B... Baroness Lucinda," he wheezed when he could breath again. "I'm s-sorry I... wasn't expecting..." he coughed, his entire body quivering. Inhaling deeply to steady himself, he went on, "A-are you taking me to the physician then?"
Lucinda cringed as she watched Sieg drop to his knees, his face showing the clear signs of panic as he did so.
“Sieg, please, in the future, know that you may rise as soon as you kneel, if you really must kneel because of your... being accustomed to it. I really wish you didn't have to kneel, but I understand you are... conditioned to it.” Lucinda had a hard time with Sieg's kneeling still. She understood he had to do it because of the cruel methods inflicted upon him to train him to do it as a child, but it made her feel incredibly uncomfortable to watch him drop to his knees whenever they crossed paths.
“I know you weren't expecting me, however, I volunteered to take you to see the physician today, as I am not busy. I think you're looking much better than you were, but given your malnourished condition, one can never take too much care. I thought I could tell you about some of the attractions you might find interesting, whenever you are ready to venture into the city, from the carriage. Are you ready to go? If you were busy, I can wait.”
Sieg coughed a few more times to fully clear his throat, then shakily rose to his feet. "Yes, m'lady. I... I really am sorry. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."
The half-elf gave a small, shy smile. "And ah, no, I wasn't busy. I just lost track of the time. I was in the records room with the bookkeeper, but he said that I could go when I remembered."
He actually blushed a little as he added, "And thank you for thinking of me, m'lady. You're too kind. I would be happy to have your advice for places to see in the city"
“Splendid! Let us go then; the carriage is waiting outside the main entrance,” Lucinda said, gesturing for Sieg to come with her. “How are you getting on with Seamus? I don't know him very well. I was much better friends with the old bookkeeper, Kirin Mao. He is treating you well?”
"He treats me very well, m'lady," Sieg replied earnestly. "I was worried at first, because his... his way of speaking, I think it's called an accent? It is difficult for me to understand. I had to keep asking him to repeat things, and I-I was worried he would become angry. But I think, I think he just found it funny."
The half-elf trailed behind Lucinda, his head ducked and his shoulders stopped in a habitually submissive posture.
“Yes, I suppose Seamus does have more pronounced accent than most of us. You'll hear that more down in the city when you start going out. It's good that you're accustoming yourself to the accent now.”
She noticed the stooped way he walked. She hated seeing him forced to feel inferior and worthless because of the Courdonians' conditioning. She hoped it would only be a matter of time before he began to lose those traits in favor of more confident ones, but her only real experience with a freed slave was Xavier, and she didn't know how long he had been free.
After a moment he steeled himself, and asked softly, "I had heard that your old bookkeeper works for Lord Ambrose now. But I heard... but... Is it true that he really left because he fell in love?"
There was an odd light in the servant's eye's as he asked that. Sadness, nostalgia, and an odd sort of smothered grief.
She smiled at his question about Kirin. “Yes, it is, I suppose. Grandfather arranged for him to stay with Ambrose because of Lord Leif. It was all on very good terms, and everyone is very happy with the arrangement, or at least we Stallions are. I don't know if House Jade was as happy to have Leif stay in Medieville, but I hope they were.” She glanced back at him and asked, “You look sad, Sieg. Is everything all right?”
The half-elf shook his head. "It just... to leave a position so freely because of a personal choice. I wish my father had been able to. The love between him and m-my mother destroyed their lives."
The had arrived at the carriage, and another servant opened the door to let them in. Sieg stood back to let Lucinda climb inside before following her and sitting gingerly across from her.
"B-but," he went on. "I'm, I'm glad it wasn't the same for your bookkeeper. I've never really, I... I've never been close enough to someone like that, to want them more than my entire life. But it must be nice."
Lucinda settled herself in the carriage and smiled at Sieg, trying to brighten his mood. “It is unfortunate for your parents, but your position is different now. It is entirely possible that someday you could meet someone like that, and if that day comes, you're free to go wherever you like to be with them. It doesn't even have to be a someone. You're free to decide to go wherever you like. If you find a dream to chase, you can. Just remember that; you're your own person.”
The carriage rolled down the hill and Lucinda pointed out down a street branching off High Street to the right. “Halfway down that road is a little theater. It's not very well-known; it caters to the middle class of the city. As such, it's not very crowded usually, but the actors are quite good. You might find the theater an enjoyable experience some time.”
Sieg wasn't entirely sure he'd ever feel that way about someone else. Frankly he was happy just to have the companionship of people like Lord Ambrose. For someone who'd never had a friend in his life, the simple kindness these people were showing him meant the world.
Turning his mind to the subject at hand, he looked out the window in the direction Lucinda was pointing. His face went rather red, and he glanced at Lucinda with a sheepish expression. "Um... what goes on at a theater, exactly?"
Lucinda felt a little embarrassed about the fact that she had failed to realize that Sieg wouldn't know what a theater was. “A theater is a place where people tell stories by acting them out as if they were really happening right before your eyes. It is very enjoyable if the acting is good.”
They came to the crossroads and Lucinda pointed in the direction on the market and the cathedral as they turned towards away to head in the direction of their destination.
“The Cathedral is very impressive, and very peaceful. You might enjoy going there,” Lucinda said. She then told him about several shops in the market that sold interesting curio, and gave as precise directions as she could to them.
Sieg listened as Lucinda described the various places to see and things to do in Destrier. It was somewhat overwhelming, and the fact that he kept having to ask for clarification on things made him feel incredibly ignorant. But it was fascinating at the same time.
"There's so much," he said softly, after a time. "I didn't... I never thought there was so much to the city. I've only ever been to the markets to buy supplies for my mast- his grace."
The half-elf winced. He still kept slipping and trying to refer to Alain as "master." It was a pretty deeply ground in habit, one that the Courdonian Alain would never have tolerated him breaking.
"I'd thought," he went on, "There was only working. It's all I've ever known. To do things, just because you can, just to... to... to pass time, it's... I don't know, it's strange, but I think I like it."
“Destrier is a rather large city. Even I don't know half of it. Like all cities, it has places of less repute. I do not visit those areas, and neither should you. Cities can be as dangerous as they are fascinating,” Lucinda said. “I'm glad you like it. It would be sad if the Courdonians had robbed you of your ability to enjoy your freedom.”
Sieg flinched a bit at the remark about Destrier being dangerous. So, this place had it's dark corners as well. He really should have known it was too good to be true. All the talk about people here being nice and not caring that he was a half-elf, or a former slave... he had started to want to believe it, at least a little. But there were people even here who would hurt him, hurt kind people like Lucinda.
There will never be freedom from pain and suffering for one such as me. I already knew that- this is just confirmation of it.
"I see," he said, his expression carefully neutral. "Thank you for the warning, m'lady. Where... where are the places should I avoid, if I might ask?"
“There are some darker areas, mainly where you can buy services that are not strictly legal. Assassins, black market goods, things that were stolen or illegal to own. You can usually tell when you're in one of those areas by the atmosphere. On the whole, you have nothing to worry about, Sieg. Most of the residents of the city you will come into contact with will mean you no harm.”
Sieg wasn't so certain he'd be able to identify the "atmosphere" of one of the bad areas. He didn't exactly have much basis for comparison.
"I... I have been afraid of, of everything my entire life," he admitted. "It's... it's hard, to know the difference here, between what I should be afraid of and what I shouldn't. I've never known anything except... except working. I don't even know how to, to take care of myself. I am 'free' but... but I don't know what that means. What to do with it."
He looked away. The half-elf still wasn't used to expressing his thoughts verbally. He often found himself talking at great length trying to figure out how to convey a relatively simple idea. Sieg had to fight back the impulse to flinch in on himself when this happened- a slave yammering so much would have been whipped in Courdon.
The carriage stopped before Lucinda had the chance to reply, and the driver opened the door to let them out. Sieg wondered what the physicians were going to do to him this time. Last time he was here had been to have his hand treated, but what exactly would they do to check his health more generally?
Lucinda stepped out of the carriage and waited for Sieg to join her.
Lucinda smiled at him, trying to not let him see the sadness she felt at his statement.
“I can't imagine the kind of life you have known, Sieg. I wish I could so easily make things black and white for you, but the world isn't like that. You're going to have learn to take chances and trust people, even if not all of them may be worthy of your trust. There is no easy, or safe, way of living. Even I have seen my share of people who had ill intentions towards my family; people who treated me coldly through no fault of my own. The only thing to do with your freedom is to make your own decisions. Even if all you do is work and rest, if you're choosing to do that, not being made to do it, then you're free. Give it time, Sieg. You'll begin to understand in time.”
She looked around and turned matters to the reason why they were there. “I'll take you in to see the physicians and wait outside while they give you your physical. They want to evaluate your recovery. When you came here, you were starved and overworked. You've been able to rest and eat properly, but there could be lingering problems from the harsh treatment you received. It's unlikely, but one can never be too careful. This way, Sieg.”
The half-elf listened as Lucinda spoke, trying to take in what she was saying. It was still difficult for him to comprehend it. It just made no sense to him, to take risks like that when you had an equal chance of getting hurt as you did of getting something good. In Courdon he'd lived by caution, because...
Because there was a certainty that he'd be punished. There hadn't been any chance of a good out come. But here it was different. Things could go poorly, yes, but... but they could also go well. Ambrose was kind, as was Seamus. And Lucinda- he'd taken a risk opening up to her as he did. And even if she didn't have an answer to his problem, she at least listened and sympathized.
"I'll try," he said softly. These people deserved that much from him, as much as they were putting themselves out for the sake of a dimensionally displaced mongrel to whom they owed nothing.
Sieg followed Lucinda into the building which he had learned was called the "physician's college." After a few minutes one of the healers took him into a room by himself. The stranger listened to Sieg's chest, felt his pulse, checked inside his mouth, ears, and nose... it was not unlike the way Sieg had heard other slaves describe their experiences at the auction block of the slave market. Every inch of them inspected in the same manner a reluctant buyer would inspect a horse or cow before purchase. Sieg had never experienced this personally, being born with Baron Allendale and then given to Grand Duke Alain directly without passing through the slave market, but he couldn't help a slight feeling of discomfort all the same.
Whe was asked to take off his shirt, however, the discomfort escalated into animal terror. That order always proceeded some sort of torture in Courdon, even if it was just a flogging. The physician had to patiently explain that he wanted to look at Sieg's chest and make sure he was filling out from his boney state. Reluctant, but trying to throttle down his gut-check fear response, Sieg removed the garment. The man was rather shocked by the extent of Sieg's scars, and his gaze lingered questioningly over the horse brand, but in the end he didn't question it. Sieg was shaking badly by the time the entire affair was done, and he made a mental note to start wrapping his brand in some sort of sash or gauze even when he had long sleeves. Other people weren't supposed to see it, because it was evidence of where he'd really come from, and Alain had instructed him to keep that a secret.
Finally it was over, and the physician took Sieg back out to meet Lucinda.
"He's improving nicely, Lady Stallion," the man said. "It's going to be a good long while before he's anywhere close to what I'd reasonably call healthy, but he's improving. You're probably safe at this point feeding him more complex foods without sending his system into shock. I'd advise supplementing his diet with cheese and nuts where you can; fish would be good as well, and liver."
Sieg listened, his face reflecting unconcealed astonishment. Nuts he'd already been eating, as well as eggs, bread, and plain but well made broth. But cheese? Liver? If well cooked, fresh food was above his station, those things were foods he would be savaged for daring to touch. Meat, especially organ meat, was food for nobles. Peasants seldom got to even touch it.
"Keep a close eye on him and bring him in at once if he seems to be lethargic or shows any obvious signs of illness," the physician went on, oblivious to Sieg's surprise. "Until he gets his weight up and his health improves, he'll be very vulnerable to getting sick, and if he gets sick in his condition it will be a very serious sort of sick."
Sieg spoke up softly. "I've never actually been sick. Not once. My father, he said it was maybe because I'm a half-breed. The human part of me is immune to elf diseases, and the elf part is immune to human diseases."
He'd seen other slaves get sick, and of course they'd had to work anyway unless they physically couldn't. But he'd never been ill a day in his life. The physician raised an eyebrow at this news.
"Is that right? Well it can't hurt to be safe anyway." He turned back to Lucinda. "Is there anything else you need today, Lady Stallion?"
Lucinda nodded as she listened to the doctor's instructions, making mental notes of whom she would need to speak to about each thing on the doctor's list. At the end, she smiled at motioned at Sieg.
“Sieg was... conditioned kneel during his time in Courdon. Sieg's throat involuntarily closes each time he is in a situation where he would have had to kneel in Courdon. Is there a way this situation could be remedied?”
The doctor glanced at Sieg in surprise. "How was this done, exactly?"
Sieg winced, his demeanor becoming extremely apologetic. So; Lucinda really was uncomfortable around him. He felt horrible that someone so nice to him was made to feel so awkward in his presence.
"My... my first master, he t-trained me to do it. He tied a rope around my neck, like a noose almost. When a noble passed me, he yanked the noose until I went down to one knee. If I tried to stand up before the noble left, before I had permission to stand, he'd yank on the noose again. S-sometimes he kept it pulled tight until I couldn't stand, or he'd anchor it to the floor so if I tried to rise it would pull tight."
The physician winced. "That's barbaric... I'm afraid this sort of thing isn't really my area of expertise. My specialization is nutrition, not mental health. I can tell you there's no easy fix, however. You can give him certain herbs that will relax the muscles in his throat so he can breathe easier, but the reflex itself will probably take a very long time and a lot of patience to work past."
Lucinda cringed as she listened to Sieg's explanation, wondering again how Courdonians could have such utter disregard for the suffering they inflicted on living beings.
“I see,” she said, regaining her composure. “Could you have the herbs delivered to the castle, along with instructions on how to administer them?” She turned to Sieg. “Are you ready to leave, Sieg, or do you have any questions for the physician?”
"I'll have our medicinal specialists see to it my lady," the physician replied. He glanced at Sieg, who only shook his head, looking thoroughly miserable. As the doctor moved off, the half-elf turned to Lucinda.
"I'm ready, m'lady." He followed her out in silence for a time, but eventually he whispered, "Why... Why did you ask the physician about my... About the kneeling? Does... Does it really m-make you th-that uncomfortable? I'm sorry if it does, I don't... You've been very kind to me, and I'm sorry I'm like this."
It had been that way with the Ambrose in Courdon. He'd been horribly uncomfortable with Sieg's kneeling, and it had wracked the half-elf with guilt.
Lucinda had been surprised when Sieg spoke up after his silence on the way back to the carriage, but she was more surprised by his words. She stopped and turned around to face him.
“Sieg, I won't lie, it does make me a little uncomfortable, and only because it is a reminder of how you were wronged. It is not your fault. However, that is not why I asked. It was not for my sake, but for yours. I want you to be able to live a happy and complete life, free from the influence the Courdonians had over you. The conditioning with the noose is appalling, and I would hate for you to have to live the rest of your life with that miserable thing happening to you every time you cross paths with a noble. Sieg, I want you to be happy, and I do not know how you ever could be with reminders like that hovering over you forever. Please, do not apologize for what you have been forced to be. That is not your fault; it will never be your fault.”
Sieg was startled by Lucinda's response. She spoke with a passion that made it impossible to think she was lying for his benefit. He opened his mouth to reply, but found himself at a loss for what to say.
These people... They cared so much about him, a stranger to whom they owed nothing... A mongrel that didn't deserve to exist...
He clenched his eyes shut, grappling with emotions he wasn't used to feeling. After a moment, he looked up at Lucinda with a very small, but genuine smile.
"I... I think I am happy, m'lady. Or at least happier then I've ever been before. I don't... I've never really been happy, at least not since I was too young to know better. But you've all been kind to me, when you had no reason to be... I'm still scared a lot, and confused, but I'm... it's good here. I don't really know how to say things well, but... thank you, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Thank you for caring."
It seemed a long time before Sieg smiled; it brought Lucinda a good deal of peace to see it. His long silence coupled with his changing facial expressions worried her. She was afraid she had upset him with her attempts to help.
“You're welcome, Sieg. I'm simply sorry that you lived in a world that made people being able to care about you so strange a concept to you. I hope someday you'll know what it is like to be truly and unreservedly happy. Until then, remind yourself that it is fine to be confused and scared; this is a new world compared to what you were used to in Courdon, and things will get better.”
Sieg nodded. "I'll... I'll try to keep that in mind. Thank you, Lady Lucinda."
* * * * *
It had been a month since Sieg started working for the Kythian Stallions. Ambrose had since returned to Medieville, leaving the half-elf feeling somewhat lost in his absence. At least Sieg had come to trust Seamus, Lucinda, and a few others among the castle servants. Most everyone was at least courteous to him, and the ones who were directly kind to him found that he responded to their kindness much like an abused puppy- with bottomless gratitude and a very sweet, almost innocent brand of shy affection.
As he settled into the work of a servant, he quickly acquired something of a reputation for being a very fast, hard worker. A product of his time as a slave- he'd been expected to complete tasks quickly but thoroughly, to maximize his productivity. Though at first he was watched at most of his tasks to make sure he knew what he was doing, eventually the other servants simply took it for granted he would do any job given to him without problems.
Their complacency almost cost Sieg what little fragile progress he'd made since arriving in Destrier.
One of the cooks called Sieg from a mundane task- mopping the flagstones on the bottom floor of the castle- with a somewhat harried look about him. When he caught sight of the half-elf he sighed explosively with relief.
"Sieg, there you are. It's market day down in the city and we badly need to restock on some supplies. But the man who was supposed to deal with it has taken sick, and I'm at my wit's end trying to shuffle everyone around. Will you please go down and pick up a few things for us? Spices, vegetables, and the like?"
The half-elf nodded- he'd been into the city on errands a few times before, so this wouldn't be too difficult. Or so he thought. He wasn't expecting what he found when he passed the castle gates.
Every square inch of the market was jam packed with people. They were shoving past one another, squashed in so tightly that it was a wonder any of them could move at all. From Sieg's perspective it was like a wall between him and the merchants, blocking him from getting to where he needed to go.
And the noise, it was deafening. Merchants shouting to draw passersby, people all talking at once, footsteps on pavement, horse hooves and the rattle of wagon wheels, the sizzle and pop of some food vendor's cooking fire, it all converged into a roar of sound that hit him with an almost physical force.
He had to go in. He had to go into that crowd, because he had been ordered to get the supplies. He couldn't run away like his instincts were screaming at him to do, he'd be punished, even if he wasn't beaten surely they'd be angry...
Swallowing hard, he forced one foot forward. Then the other. With a third step, he was swallowed by the crowd, and almost immediately swept up in it like a leaf in the current of a rapid stream. Shoulders thumped into his, people cursed at him when he blocked their way. He staggered forwards with no real sense of direction, just trying to move so that he was not being constantly thumped into. The closeness of the crowd, the people touching him as they passed, it was like an electric current that was lighting up his nerves painfully. Sweat started rolling down his face, and he trembled with unrestrained terror. His heart was hammering wildly, and he felt himself gasping as if he'd run a marathon.
There's too many people, it's so loud, where's the way out, I can't get out. Where do I go, I can't see anything, I'm stuck, I'm lost, Master is going to be so angry and I'm lost. Oh gods, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die…
The basket he'd brought along for supplies fell from his arm, and he clenched at the cloth of his uniform's neckline, trying to clear his neck so he could breath. It was so hot, there were so many people, he couldn't get out…
Lucinda sighed as she navigated the crowded market. She'd been doing her normal rounds, checking in at the local inns for all the gossip, making deliveries from anonymous charitable individuals to get more information on the state of the less well-off hospitals and orphanages in Destrier, and things of that nature.
It had been a mistake trying to use the direct route through the market to make her way back to the castle; it would have been much quicker to have taken the back streets and gone the long way around to the High Road.
She was used to the flow of the market now, and she knew how to move in the crowd with the kind of grace that suggested that she'd been born into that life, not a noblewoman playing peasant.
Her eyes were always scanning the crowd around her, alert to the dangers you found in crowds, pickpockets and cutpurses, and to those who looked like they might need help. She had picked up a good deal of information in the markets merely from being alert.
Today she spotted the castle uniform. That was not unusual, as it was market day. What was unusual was the attitude of the servant. His back was to her, but she could see that his shoulders were hunched and the posture of the back rigid.
She worked her way through the crowd, trying to make her way to the servant. Halfway there, she realized it was Sieg. He was clearly having a panic attack, likely caused by being absolutely overwhelmed from the crowd. She made a mental note to severely remonstrate whoever had been foolish enough to send him out alone on market day.
She got to him and caught him by the arm. Lucinda had refrained from touching Sieg since the first day when she learned that it bothered him, but it was the only way to move him along in the situation she found them in. She scooped up a basket that was lying at his feet, assuming it was his, and dragged him along.
She pulled him far enough to reach a building and ducked into the doorway with him, getting him out of the crush. She released his arm and lowered her hood so he could see who she was.
“Sieg, are you all right?” she asked.
Sieg felt someone grab his arm, and he froze with animal terror. Here it was, he was going to be punished, they were going to beat him. Flinching hard, he let himself be dragged through the crowd, not really registering who was dragging him between the swimming of his head and the absolute certainty he was about to die.
Suddenly he was yanked free of the worse of the crush, and the person who'd been dragging him turned to face him- it was a cloaked woman, and when she pulled her hood down he saw a familiar pair of green eyes looking at him from a blonde-framed face.
"L... Lady.... Lucinda?"
He shuddered, leaning backwards against the doorframe and hugging his arms to his chest. His knees buckled under him and he slid down so that he was half-kneeling, half slumped sideways at the noblewoman's feet. His heart was still knocking hard against his ribs, and he was panting hard.
"I'm sorry, I was t-trying to get the, the supplies but it was so loud and the people were everywhere, I tried, I tried, but I couldn't get out and they were everywhere and, and-"
Lucinda knelt down next to Sieg and smiled reassuringly as she cut him off in the middle of his apologies, “Sieg, calm down; catch your breath. There is no need to apologize. I don't know what whoever sent you out here was thinking, but they are going to hear about my incredible disapproval of their poor decision-making skills when I return to the castle. The market is chaos on market day. They should never have sent you alone. Even Destrier natives have trouble making their way through some days. Collect yourself, and do not be ashamed.”
She looked at the basket in her hands. “I will handle the errands if you will tell me what you were asked to bring. You should go back to the castle; tell them I sent you home.”
Sieg took a deep, ragged breath, trying to calm himself down. The terrible, oppressive sensation of impending doom he'd felt before was ebbing, finally. Lucinda's voice was calm and kind, which did a great deal to reassure the half-elf.
After a moment, he looked up again. "I was supposed to find spices; salt, thyme, cumin, paprika, cloves, ginger, and basil. Cinnamon and sugar as well. And some vegetables, but those I was supposed to order and have shipped to the castle in bulk; there, there should be a form for the order in the basket."
Lucinda checked the basket and found that the form for ordering the vegetables was indeed in the basket. The spice order would be easy to fill; she knew which stands to go to in order to get those.
Sieg rubbed his forehead wearily. "But my lady, I..." he looked back towards the crowd, a slight tremble starting up in him again. "I d-don't... I think I'm lost. If I, if I tried to go back through the crowd, I'd just get stuck again."
In a very small voice- unable to fight back the conviction he was about to be hit for his impudence- he whimpered, "M-may I please stay with you? I... I'm..." his jaw tightened. Admitting to weakness in Courdon was asking to be taken advantage of, but Lucinda had never been anything but kind to him. Forcing the words out around his clenched teeth, Sieg said, "I'm s-scared."
Lucinda’s mind was snapped back to Sieg by his admission that he was lost and wanted to stay with her because he was frightened. She looked down at him; he looked almost like a lost child hunched up like he was at her feet. She smiled and held out a hand to help him up, if he wanted it.
“Of course, Sieg. I should have realized you would not know your way home from here. I suppose this is a good opportunity to show you more of the market. Come along then, we'll move as fast as we can so we can make our way out of the crowd and back to the safety of the castle as soon as possible.”
When Lucinda put her hand out to him, Sieg stared at it without comprehension for a few seconds. Then, his face actually broke into a smile- a full smile, not the usual tiny upward turn of his lips he normally showed on the rare occasion he was please or amused by something. The expression was half-hysterical, but given the emotions he'd been grappling with that was hardly surprising. Sieg felt a flood of relief, and gingerly put out a scarred hand to Lucinda's smooth one, and let her pull him up.
"Lady I... thank you," he said, with absolute sincerity and trust in his voice.
Lucinda smiled even brighter when Sieg actually reached out to take the offered hand and allow her to help him to his feet. There had been headway before, he'd make quite a few confidences to her, but actually trusting her enough to willingly allow her to help him up was real milestone in her opinion.
"You're welcome, Sieg," she said simply, and then turned to look out at the crowd. "Stay close; I will move slowly. We will have to go a little ways in to get to the stands, but the crowd has a flow to it, just like a river or an ocean. You simply have to learn to move with it to get to where you need to go."
The half-elf nodded, though he still eyed the crowd with unease. "Yes, m'lady."
He followed Lucinda, his nerves starting to buzz again as he felt the closeness of the other people and their arms brushing against his. It was so loud, how did these people stand all the noise?
Desperate to distract himself- and to drown out the crowd- he asked, "If, if I might ask, what brought you into the city? You're dressed like... well it's not like your usual clothes."
He's almost said "you're dressed like a peasant," but realized belatedly if she was dressed that way she might not want people to know she was a noble. But... why?
Lucinda glanced over her shoulder at Sieg as he asked about her peasant dress and gave him a conspiratorial grin. “Yes, Sieg, I am dressed like a peasant. I can speak like a peasant as well, so do not be surprised when I suddenly switch to that with the vendors. It is a long story of how I came to be out here dressed like this on regular basis, but would you believe it was because of the king?”
She smiled a melancholy smile as she remembered what had set her on her current path. “There was a near rebellion in Kyth. The peasants formed a party to try to have their voices heard. It turned from rebellion to setting the proper monarch on the throne of Kyth when they discovered the long lost Prince Galateo, a man I knew as Aldrich Finnegan. They all had good hearts; they had all had bad experiences where their needs were ignored by those who were supposed to help them. They did not ask for help because they did not believe we would help them. They trusted each other, but not the nobles. Because of my friendship with Aldrich, I learned all of this, and realized that there was much I should be doing to help my people.”
“In this guise, I am one of them. I learn things that I never could if people knew me as the baroness, as the Grand Duke's granddaughter. I can take that information and ensure it makes it to those who can fix the problems our people have. They may not know we're there and we are listening, but we are. I cannot do much in the grand scheme of things, and well that hand should fall to others, I would likely make a royal mess of it, but I do what I can.”
Sieg was startled when Lucinda mentioned the king, but then understanding dawned on his face. "Oh, Lord Ambrose works for the king, doesn't he? D-did he meet him at the same time as you, then?"
The half-elf looked oddly melancholy. "In Courdon, the n-nobles do not care about the peasants. They're... they're not seen as m-much better than slaves. And the peasants don't rebel, because they are too afraid to. Just the suspicion of rebellion would mean execution. Or worse, being sold into slavery."
He shrugged. "That's what happened to my mother, I was told. As soon as I was old enough to wean, she was sold as a slave to another lord far away. Because she had an affair with a slave, and was trying to convince him to run away with her."
The half-elf had mentioned his parents to Lucinda before, of course, but not that much detail- only that they'd been in love and it had ended badly. But he shook his head, smiling a little at Lucinda. "But, but you and the nobles here want to help. And that's... it's kindness I didn't know could exist. I know my master and his family would never walk among peasants in their clothing, let alone for such a reason."
"No, I introduced Great-Uncle to him, actually. We did not know he was the lost prince at that time. Later, after the bloody coronation, Grandfather suggested to Aldrich that Ambrose would make a good advisor, and he is a great advisor. He is also very good with Aldrich's nieces. They are nice girls, even if the youngest is a bit... odd at points."
Lucinda listened as Sieg told her the full story of his parents. She felt a catch in her throat, sorrow for Sieg's ill-fated family filling her heart. "Kyth and Courdon are thankfully very different places. It is like that in Courdon now, but it won't always be. They will rise up, Sieg, and they will win when that day comes. Someday, in a future I am sure will come to pass, perhaps Courdon may become like Kyth. I am sorry for your parents, that a free Courdon and a life together was not to be for them. Do you know if your mother is still out there somewhere?"
"I don't know," the half-elf admitted. "I've never known her, and no one told us what happened to her after that. It is... hard to think of her much. My, my father spoke of her often, he missed her, but she was... just an idea to me. I don't even know what her face looked like."
Sieg reflected that even if he had known the whereabouts of his mother, there was no chance of ever seeing her- she was not only a country away, she was an entire world away. He didn't know what had brought him to this strange place, and every day he dreaded the thought that he'd wake up back in Courdon as suddenly as he'd left it, but even if he remained here forever he doubted lightning would strike twice and pull her over. If she was even still alive.
Sieg opened his mouth to address her assertion that Courdon would eventually be free- something he privately doubted- but as he did so someone whose arms were overflowing with recently purchased goods shoved past him, making the half-elf spin a little so that he had to flail his arms to catch his balance. He ended up stumbling into a few other people in the process, who shoved him away with irate cries. There were no few annoyed catcalls, and Sieg flinched towards Lucinda with a whimpered apology.
Lucinda didn't acknowledge Sieg's apology, instead linking her free arm through one of his to pull him closer so that she could guide him through the jostling crowd. "Do not worry, Sieg. You are doing fine for your first trip to the market on market day. There is the produce vendor."
She released his arm in front of the stand to talk to the vendor, pulling out their order and discussing it with the man before finalizing it and moving on in the direction of the spice vendor.
"I did not know my mother either," Lucinda told Sieg as they moved on. "She died in childbirth. She was Grandfather's firstborn. I honestly do not know that much of her either. Admittedly, I was never curious, odd as that may sound."
He flinched a little when Lucinda linked arms with him, but meekly allowed her to tow him through the worst of the crush. At her comments about her own mother, Sieg shook his head. "It isn't odd, m'lady. I... I never really wondered much either. She was an idea in my mind, like I said before, not a person. But I, I am sorry about your mother."
Lucinda spread her hands in a sort of shrug. "I was told she had a happy life, even if it was short. Father missed her, but he did not outlive her long. I missed him dearly, but I had Grandfather and Grandmother here in Destrier to go to. I have been fortunate."
The half-elf stared at Lucinda, actually stopping for a split second in his shock before trotting so he didn't lose her in the crowd. So she lost her mother when she was very young, and was raised by her father... and his death had affected her strongly. It seemed that she and he had much in common- though he couldn't really claim to having grandparents who'd looked after him once Belial died. Instead he'd been handed over to the Courdonian Alain, which had made things worse rather than better.
"I missed my father after his death too," he said softly, but couldn't bring himself to elaborate on the empathy more than that. Belial's death was still a very raw subject, and he didn't want to speak about it at length. Not yet.
Lucinda gave Sieg a sympathetic smile at his comment about his father, understanding that Sieg was too emotional to talk about it, and so said nothing.
She glanced around at the market, and decided that even though they were expecting Sieg back, she shouldn't hurry him if he didn't wish to hurry. "Do not hesitate to ask to stop at any of the stands if you see anything you would like to look at. There are always interesting vendors on market day," she said.
When Lucinda offered to let him stop and look at the stands, he shook his head. Despite his fairly successful attempts to distract himself with the conversation with Lucinda, he could feel sweat rolling down his face. It was so hot with all the people around, and their closeness made him jittery. "I don't have any of my money with me, just what they gave me for the supplies. Besides, I just... the people, they're everywhere. Maybe, maybe another day, but not now. I can't, I... just not today. I'm sorry."
She smiled reassuringly at Sieg and pointed at a vendor. "Worry not, Sieg, I understand. If you are not up to it, I will not push you. It was purely for your benefit. There is the spice vendor. We can purchase the herbs and spices and be on our way home."
Sieg nodded, though he shifted uncomfortably. "M'lady do you... do you really mean to speak to the cook that asked me to come here when we get back? He outranks me, and, and besides that it's my fault. I should have been able to do this, but I just couldn't move..."
She stopped and turned to face Sieg, gesturing him next to the spice vendor's stall, out of the traffic of the market. "Yes, I do, Sieg. This has nothing to do with rank. I will not punish the cook, if that is what you are worried about; I will merely speak to him so this situation does not repeat itself, at least not until you are more accustomed to being around crowds and you are no longer so fragile. You did nothing wrong, and you are not to blame for what happened today."
She turned to the vendor and began to barter for the items Sieg had been sent for.
The half-elf glanced away. It wasn't that, not really. Usually, when an overseer was lectured or punished, he would take out his anger on the slaves. The overseer could easily say they were shirking and he'd punished them, because who would believe the slave that they'd done nothing? But he didn't voice it; somehow he got the impression it would only lead to another round of reassurances that Kyth was not like that.
Sieg waited until Lucinda had finished talking to the spice merchant and stepped away with the required items in her basket before he spoke up again. A very tired, haunted look came into his eyes as he spoke. "I'm not worth it. I'm a half-breed. I was born in slavery and trained to serve my entire life, and I can't even do that right. It is my fault, that I'm so incompetent I can't do the only thing I've ever known how. I-I don't deserve your kindness, Lady Lucinda."
Lucinda put a hand to her eyes, feeling tired. She knew Sieg needed patience after a lifetime of having the idea of worthlessness being beaten into him from the moment he was born, but it was hard not to be frustrated at Sieg's continued insistence that he was worthless and undeserving of common kindness.
"Sieg, please don't say things like that. You know how I feel about the subject. You are doing a fine job at the castle, and no one can fault your service. I have been born and raised to be a noblewoman, and I have made a fine mess of being a proper noblewoman at times. Perfection is impossible, and no one should be held to impossible standards."
A thought occurred to her on how to distract him from the subject. She launched into telling him about an incident a few years before when she and Lady Jeniver Jade caused a mess at the King's Arms Inn, got caught, and she ended up giving the innkeeper a kitten as an apology because of their knight's clever idea based on a play on words.
Sieg wasn't entirely convinced, but he allowed himself to be distracted by Lucinda's change of subject. He was surprised by the story of the lady and her friend using magic to cause a mess, but by the end of it that tiny smile he wore when he was amused by something had returned. To his surprise, he realized that while he was preoccupied, they had also made it back to the gates of Destrier castle and out of the crowd.
"Oh, we're home," he said, unnecessarily. "I didn't realize... Thank you, Lady Lucinda. For, for helping me. That was hard, and I... thank you. Um, should, should I get back to work then? Or would you rather I accompany you back to the kitchens?"
Lucinda turned to smile at Sieg. "I think you should return to your duties. I shall take these to the kitchen and have a word with the cook about the situation. When you are done with your work, come see me. I have something interesting I would like to share with you."
Sieg nodded, and gratefully fled back to the mopping that he'd been doing before he was called away. In spite of Lucinda's assurances he was still a little jittery and melancholy about the whole episode. He wished he could stop being frightened of everything all the time. He liked Lucinda, as he hadn't liked any nobles- or anyone really- except for Lord Ambrose. He could tell she was at least a little disappointed and frustrated by his lack of progress. But it was so hard to let go of the conditioning of a lifetime, to forget twenty-six years of painful physical and emotional abuse...
But he [did feel comfortable here in the castle, at least a little. That was something new. And the fact that he was able to trust people like Ambrose and Lucinda at all was new as well. What was more, when he was dismissed from his work for the day and went looking for the lady to see what she wanted to show him, he actually found himself curious and a little excited to see what it was. Ambrose had shown him the inventing, and that had been marvelous; what would Lucinda have to share?
He was finally able to find her just as she was coming down the hall from her music lessons, and he knelt reflexively but quickly stood again so as not to irritate her too much. There was a small smile on his face as he stood again, and though his demeanor was shy it was also a little excited. "I'm f-free now. You wanted to see me, m'lady?"
Lucinda smiled when she saw Sieg coming, and she was glad to see that he rose on his own. She could see the hint of excitement as he reminded her of her earlier request for him to come see her after his work was done. She nodded and gestured for him to follow her, leading him to her sitting room. She opened the door and waved him in before going to the table where she had left her vase earlier that day.
She picked it up and walked over to Sieg, holding it out for him to see. "This was made by Aldrich, or, as he is better known now, the King. I met him because of this vase. It has rare talent. Will you sing one of the songs your father taught you? If you do, you will discover what I mean."
Sieg blinked, looking quizzically at Lucinda's vase. It had a talent? What did that mean? Confused, but compliant, the half-elf closed his eyes, trying to remember the lyrics he hadn't heard in ten years, spoken in a language he'd never understood. Finally, he opened his mouth, and in a low, clear voice, he sang.
"Bonne nuit, mon ange
C'est l'heure de fermer les yeux
Et de mettre ces questions de côté pour un autre jour
Je crois savoir ce que tu me demandais
Je crois que tu sais ce que j'essayais de dire
Je t'ai promis que je ne te quitterais jamais
Et tu devrais toujours savoir
Que où que tu puisses aller
Où que tu sois
Je ne serai jamais très loin"
The half-elf had never really sung before, at least not for as long as he could remember. The lack of training was evident in his voice, but despite that it was apparent he had a natural talent for singing. His pitch was true and despite the usual fearful tremor of his voice when he spoke, he held the notes steady and strong.
As he sang, Sieg became aware of the sound of someone whistling. But it wasn't Lucinda. The sound was coming from... from the vase? He faltered in his singing, staring at it, but as soon as he stopped the vase also fell silent. Timidly he sang another few bars of the song, and sure enough the vase started whistling along with him again.
"That's... how does it do that?" he asked with wonder.
Lucinda was smiling widely by the time Sieg realized it was the vase whistling.
"It is enchanted. Everything Aldrich made came to life; each in its own unique way. I was quite surprised when I discovered this. He had not told me that when I bought it, and he didn't seem to know the vase was enchanted when he sold it to me. It whistles along with music, whether played or sung," Lucinda explained. "Sieg, you are quite good. You told me your father taught you songs, but you did not tell me you could sing."
Before Seig had the chance to react to the revelation that the vase was enchanted- and that apparently the king of the country could bring inanimate objects to life- Lucinda complimented him on his singing. Not on the song, but on his singing. He gaped at her a little, a faint flush creeping across his face. "I... d-do you really think so, m'lady? I've never really sung before, I actually didn't usually even talk in Courdon, not unless I had to. The less I talked, the less I might say something to offend and be punished. I've never really sung before. At least not since I was too small to remember."
"I really do. It is shame your talent has been hidden so long because of the cruelty of the Courdonians. There are no such restrictions here. You should practice whenever you can. I have heard the servants singing while they do their work. Dolly often sings while she works; she would sing to me songs that were popular in Kine, where I was born. Perhaps you would like to practice with me sometimes? I will teach you some songs and play while you sing." Lucinda shifted her vase so she could cradle it in one arm and wave at the harp with the other.
The half-elf looked down at his feet, his eyes wide. He had a talent? There was something he could do that wasn't cleaning or fetching or delivering messages?
It was an almost alien thought. A large part of him had been very hard pressed to disassociate his life now from his life in Courdon because, for all that the people here kept telling him he was free, he wasn't, not really. He had no skills besides those that were applicable to serving. Unless he wanted to die as a beggar on the streets, he had to stay. Not that he particularly wanted to go anywhere, not when he felt mostly safe and comfortable in Destrier castle, but lack of desire didn't negate the fact that he also had no choice.
But if he could sing... that was something he'd be able to do that wasn't pertinent to his duties. Something that was just his. If he really was good at it, it was an avenue he could possibly explore one day if he decided he didn't want to be a servant anymore. And even if he never did anything with it, it was still something he could have that would be his, that no one could take away from him. At least not without mutilating him in such a way as to make it harder for him to work, which even the Courdonians would not do.
"If you think it would be worth your time," he said looking up at her with that same wide, heartfelt smile he'd worn when she rescued him in the market. "I think I'd like that. Very much. I never thought someone like me could have a talent, but it's... it's a nice feeling. To maybe be good at something, something that's not just doing servant work."
"If it makes you happy, then it will certainly be worth my time," Lucinda replied.
She set her vase down on the table and turned to smile at Sieg. "Let us start with the basics. Shall I teach you scales?"
Familiar - Countryswap Crossover AU Collabed with Omniscia and Celestial
It was a mid-August, and very warm by Bernian standards. But for a certain half-elf that had recently taken up residence in Destrier Castle, the weather was absolutely balmy. He was far more accustomed to the desertlike conditions of Courdon, where weather such as Bern was experiencing now was more akin to a late-autumn temperature.
But the weather was the furthest thing from the half-elf’s mind just then. He’d been called to see Alain, the Grand Duke of Bern and the lord of Destrier Castle- and more to the point, the cross-dimensional counterpart to a man who had made Sieg’s life miserable for ten years. Sieg still didn’t really understand how he’d come to be in this mirror world, where the Stallion family was kind (or relatively so) and slaves existed only as a distant idea from another country. It was surreal, especially given how many of the people he’d met here he knew- and feared- in the other world.
Swallowing hard, he reached up and gave the door two sharp knocks. “Maste- your grace? It’s m-me.”
Alain looked up as he heard the voice beyond his door and rolled up the map that had been spread out in front of him. There was no danger of his visitor asking any questions about it but he preferred not having irrelevant distractions around. At the word ‘master’, the tiniest of frowns crossed his face before the Grand Duke erased it. There was no need to make interaction with him any harder for Sieg without making him assume that he was angry.
“Come in, Sieg, the door is open,” he said calmly and sat down at the oak desk, steepling his hands in front of him.
Sieg felt a reflexive tightening of his muscles as Alain said his name, but forced himself to relax. This Alain didn’t use his name as a signal he was in trouble. It was alright. At least he told himself that- it was hard to break years of association.
Before entering the room, he squeezed a small pouch of leaves that he wore around his neck under his shirt. It released a vapor that would help him keep his throat open so he didn’t have to kneel to the grand duke- something he’d learned the nobles in this reverse world didn’t particularly care for.
Gently pushing the door open, he walked in and nodded his head respectfully to the grand duke. He didn’t speak- he usually didn’t unless he had to with Alain, a habit built on years of associating the man with prefering a silent, obedient slave to a fellow person with a personality and individual will.
Sieg was as nervous as usual, a fact which did not surprise Alain at all. He gave him the faintest of smiles, though it was unlikely that this would help anything. Still, it cost him nothing to treat the half-elf like a person, something which Courdon had never done to him.
“Feel free to sit down, if you wish,” he gestured with his hand at the chair opposite him. “There’s a matter I wish to talk to you about.”
There it was again- little gestures, a smile in Sieg’s direction, the invitation to sit down, all very small things, but things that would never have happened in Courdon. It was uncanny, and in a way almost frightening in and of itself. He’d thought he knew Alain, knew what to expect from him and how to work with him. Now, this Alain was so very like, and at the same time so unlike his master, he was never certain what the man would do next.
Gingerly, he sat in the proffered chair, though right on the end of it and with no small amount of tenseness. “I am at your disposal, your grace.”
He had watched Sieg carefully as he sat down, noting how uncomfortable he was in the chair. That could not be helped. Slaves were never asked to sit down by their masters after all. But for the moment, that was not important. Getting Sieg used to being free would take time but this had to be dealt with now.
“I will get straight to the point,” the Grand Duke leaned forward. “In a few days, there will be a visitor to the castle. Said visitor knows the you in this world, very well I must add. So to prevent awkwardness for all of us, I must ask you to avoid them for a few days while they stay here and prepare for the next leg of their journey.”
Sieg actually looked up at Alain, startled. “The me in… that’s r-right, you and L-Lord Ambrose recognized me when I f-first got here… Only Lord Ambrose called me something different, I don’t r-remember what, but…”
The half-elf looked down at his knees. In retrospect it probably should have struck him sooner, but with so much else to take in it hadn’t. Of course he had a counterpart in this world as well.
“Mas- y-your grace, if, if I…” he swallowed hard. “I’ll hide from the v-visitor, I’ll stay in the s-servant’s quarters, but i-if I m-may ask, the, the other me, what is he like?”
A question? That was not something Alain had expected from the half-elf. Of course, it was hardly unwelcome. Another smile appeared on his face and he leaned back in his chair, resting his still-folded hands on the desk in front of him.
“I suppose the most notable thing is that your Kythian counterpart is a knight of the Nid’aigle company, that is the elven city that exists in Corvus. He is personable and courageous, almost to a fault. While he does put his foot in his mouth occasionally, he never means it. And he is very helpful,” here the Grand Duke smirked. “There are many people in Bern who consider him a hero, in fact, though he would dismiss that. And get rather embarrassed about it too.”
He is also shouldering incredible amounts of guilt and trauma, Alain thought to himself but that was something that was best left out of the description. There was no need for Sieg to know that.
“A… a kn-knight? A hero?” Sieg squeaked, his eyes going round with shock. A position of such respect, the accolade of bravery from the grand duke…
“It must be a bit of a shock for you but that is how it is. Make of that information what you will,” Alain replied neutrally.
The former slave looked down again. Everyone else in this world was similar-but-different from their self in Courdon. It seemed, however, that the other version of him was wildly different. What sort of life had he lived, to be such a person?
“I… th-thank you for t-telling me, your grace,” Sieg said finally. “Is, is there anything else you needed?”
The Grand Duke shook his head and gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “There’s nothing more I need. The visitor arrives in three days and should leave in another four. You can still go about your duties as normal but I will give the stewards instructions where not to send you, which should filter down to the other servants. And I suggest you avoid anybody you do not know.”
He blinked once, projecting an aura of patience. “You may go now, assuming there is nothing else you wish to ask me.”
The half-elf bowed his head, and stood. “I understand, your grace.”
He turned and walked back out of Alain’s office, considering what the Stallion had told him. In this world he was a hero? It seemed so absurd. Then again he’d been similarly shocked to learn Ambrose was a royal advisor, so… perhaps it wasn’t so far-fetched after all.
Shrugging it off, he turned down the hall towards the servant’s quarters. He had work to do.
* * * * *
It had been two days since the grand duke’s visitor had arrived and Sieg had begun scurrying around the periphery of the castle to avoid them. He couldn’t help but wonder how often this sort of thing would occur, especially if the Kythian version of him was a famous knight. Then again, he didn’t mind so much. After all, in Courdon Alain had forced him to be out in the public areas and visible whenever there was company. A half-elf slave was a novelty, and Sieg had made for a rare ornament and a very interesting conversation piece for his former master.
No, staying out of sight didn’t bother him in the least. It meant he wasn’t being gawked at and spoken of as if he weren’t there, as if he didn’t realize the way they were degrading him. Not that he’d ever expected anything different, after all elves were subhuman and a half-elf a monster. Of course people would gossip. That didn’t make it fun.
The half-elf finished dusting one of the smaller meeting rooms, and headed back down the servant’s halls to leave his ragcloth with the launderers. He figured he could bring the clean bedsheets for his room up while he was in there, and still be prompt about getting his next task from one of the higher ranking servants. This plan in mind, he picked up his pace a little- he was ahead of schedule, he usually was, but he still prefered being early to being late. Late slaves were punished, after all.
The half-elf needn’t have worried so much. He made it to the laundry and back to his room in good time, and left the folded sheets on the bed to set properly once he’d been let off for the day. As he passed the door to the kitchens, however, he heard a soft noise, and paused. It was midafternoon, there shouldn’t have been anyone in there this time of day. Dinner preparations wouldn’t start for another several hours, and cleanup from lunch was long over. It wasn’t a stock day either…
Curious, and a little concerned, the half-elf backed up a bit and peered into the room. If someone was in the kitchen who shouldn’t be, he needed to tell someone. But first he had to confirm who it was and what they were doing- the business could have been perfectly legitimate. The door on the servant’s end was slightly ajar, and he managed to slip in the kitchen without much noise and duck behind one of the storage closets. Glancing around the corner, he tried to pinpoint the source of the sound he’d heard, and after a moment his eyes were drawn to a flicker of movement on the other end of the room.
The person in question was wearing everyday clothes with Stallion colors, and was looking through the cabinets. His search wasn’t frantic, as if afraid he’d get caught, but he still seemed to be looking for something specific.
He tried opening a cupboard full of bowls. Nope, not what he was looking for. He closed it again. He opened a cupboard with plates. Still not it. He opened another to be met with the sight of saucers. They sure had a lot of dishes…
He was beginning to think he was looking through the wrong part of the kitchen. So he closed the cabinets and walked through the middle of the room, well within Sieg’s point of view. He stopped in front of the spice cabinet and reached up to open it… with his upper arms.
Sieg’s stomach dropped. No, it… it couldn’t be and yet… He was standing upright, and wearing Stallion colors, but there was no way to possibly mistake him. The half-elf had to clench his jaw hard to keep from making any noise as recognition slammed over him.
Orrin…
Orrin had opened a cabinet that held dried meats and cheeses, and let out an audible “Ah!” He grabbed a piece and took a bite, having successfully found a snack. He soon found himself slowing down and pausing. He was getting that familiar feeling. That feeling that someone was staring at him. He turned in the direction it was coming from, and found himself looking at the servants entrance.
“...Sieg?”
When the half-dwarf turned towards him, and called his name, at first the former slave wanted to go towards him, to return the greeting- but this wasn’t his Orrin. It was the Orrin of the Kythian world, and there was no telling what sort of…
Wait.
Sieg felt a jolt of panic surge through him at the realization that this Orrin, who had no reason to know him, had just said his name. This must have been who Alain had warned him about, the one who knew the version of him in this world. And now he’d been seen.
“I… I…” he said hoarsely, trying to think of something, anything he could say to salvage the situation and coming up completely blank. He looked into the half-dwarf’s confused eyes with his own terrified ones- and then he bolted back out the servant’s door.
“Wait, Sieg!” Orrin followed after the half-elf, not even bothering to close the cupboard. He ducked through the servant’s entrance and ran behind. “Where are ya goin’?”
He was following, oh gods, he was following. “I’m… I… p-please,” Sieg stammered, trying to think what he could possibly even say. Coming up with nothing, he squeezed his eyes shut around tears of terror and anguish. “Orrin, please, y-you don’t, I’m not…”
“Come on, Sieg,” the half-dwarf said between breaths as he tried to keep up. “Ya know I’m not as fast as ya…”
Sieg gave no answer, instead trying to run even faster. Between the tears clouding his eyes and his own speed, he barely registered where he was running, and lost his footing on one of the formal rugs. He slipped and fell on his back with a cry of agony as his spine lit with pain. He curled in on himself, sobbing at the utter mess he’d made of the most important rule Alain had given him for living here.
Once Orrin had caught up to Sieg, he bent down by him immediately - before he even caught his breath. Now that he could get a good look at the half-elf, he realized something was off. First of all, he was wearing Stallion clothes. Secondly, the scars that he could see were all wrong. And why had Sieg run away from him? He was also clearly skinnier than usual, and his nose seemed broken… did something happen?
The commotion, however, did not remain unnoticed for long. One minute, the two were alone and the next, the Grand Duke had rounded the corner and stopped, taking in the scene with the Stallion servant and knight. He had a feeling this would happen, that was why he was here, in fact. The castle was large and the likelihood of Sieg and Orrin crossing paths had been greatly lowered by the measures that he had undertaken. Nevertheless, the half-elf had shown the slightest hint of curiosity before, when he had asked about this world’s version of himself. It was plausible he had gone to spy on his visitor to try to find out more and slipped up. Or perhaps it was random chance.
Whatever it was that had led the two to meet, the damage had been done. Now it was up to Alain to mitigate it. He took several steps forward until he loomed over them, his expression giving nothing away.
“It’s alright,” he reached a hand out to Sieg to help him up should the half-elf accept the assistance. At the same time, the Grand Duke gave Orrin a knowing smile.
“You must be very confused, Sir Orrin,” Alain spoke very calmly, “And I’m afraid it is inevitable that the explanation will confuse you even more.”
Sieg heard the voice he’d been dreading to hear, and he immediately whipped around, yanking himself so that he was bent over with his forehead pressed against the floor at Alain’s feet. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry Master, it was an accident, I’m s-s-sorry, I just, I didn’t, it’s him, I knew him, and I couldn’t, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Orrin had looked up when he heard Alain’s footsteps. The Grand Duke was right about him being confused, and it was only going to get worse? And then Sieg spoke, and Orrin got even more confused as he went along… did he just call Alain “Master”?
His confusion was clearly visible, with his brow furrowed and his mouth agape. Apparently, this was all going to be a big mess in his mind by the time they were finished. He could already feel the headache coming on.
Orrin let out a sigh, bringing an upper hand up to rub his forehead. “As confusin’ as this already is… I don’t think I could say ‘no’ even if I wanted, could I?” He sighed again. This involved Sieg. There was no way he was going to just let it go, and even if he could it would only leave him still confused. Might as well at least try to get some answers.
“No, Sir Orrin. Since you have already seen him, you deserve an explanation,” Alain replied, glancing down at Sieg at his feet. A sigh escaped him. He bent down on one knee beside Sieg, trying to somehow breach the distance between the two.
“As I said, it’s alright. I am not angry with you and I am not going to punish you. Remember, I am not your master and I never was,” the Grand Duke said and just for a moment, a hint of discomfort passed across his face. He stood up and once again offered his hand to the half-elf. “You can stand up, if you wish. And while you are free to go, I would prefer it if you stay. There is something I am curious about, and perhaps you have questions too.”
Alain glanced down the corridor, considering the rooms in this part of the castle. There were mostly storerooms there but at the end of the hallway was a small dining room which should be unoccupied around this time of day. He gestured to it with his cane. “First of all, however, we should probably go somewhere more private. I don’t want just anybody overhearing what I am going to tell you, Sir Orrin.”
Sieg bit back another sob, pushing himself up on his knees. He looked at Alain’s hand hesitantly, then accepted it, though it was obvious from the tension in his mutilated hand that he was terrified. He looked aside at Orrin, his expression full of raw anguish.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Orrin.” He ducked his head. “I’ll, I’ll s-stay. I m-messed up, I h-have to stay.”
Orrin felt a pang as he saw just how troubled Sieg was. He wanted to do something, to comfort him and tell him things would be alright. But he was still so confused… something wasn’t right about Sieg’s behavior, and he wasn’t sure if he could actually help. Plus, Alain was there, and it seemed like things always got muddied when the Grand Duke was involved.
Orrin stood up and walked near the half-elf. He supposed he would have to settle for being close to Sieg for the time being. He turned to Alain. “Alright,” he said softly. “Let’s go.”
Alain had let go of Sieg’s hand as soon as he had lifted him up, not wanting to cause the slave any more discomfort with his touch, and silently led the way towards the small dining room. Once they had entered, he closed the door behind them and sat down on the bench at the left hand side of the table.
“Have a seat, both of you,” he gestured at the right side and steepled his fingers in front of him. “We will be here a while.”
Orrin did as invited and sat down where indicated. As he did, he looked over at Sieg, confused and worried for the poor guy. Sieg sat as well, his shoulders hunched and his gaze fixed downwards. Or at least, for the most part. He couldn’t help occasionally glancing at Orrin- so much like the person he’d known in Courdon, but at the same time so obviously not him. It made the half-elf’s gut twist.
“I am perfectly aware that this is going to sound insane, Sir Orrin, but I ask you to bear with me,” Alain peered at the two over his intertwined fingers. Though he occasionally glanced at Sieg, for the most part his gaze was fixed on Orrin. “I should start by saying that he is not the Sieg you know. I do not know where he is, though I would wager he is back at Nid’Aigle. This is his alternate universe counterpart.”
Orrin looked like he comprehended that last sentence about as much as a rock. “Alter… What now?”
“Another reality that exists parallel to our own,” Alain explained.
The half-dwarf still didn’t understand. “What’s that?”
“Something else that could have been but isn’t, at least not here,” Alain smirked. “I know, it’s a strange concept to wrap your mind around.”
You’ve certainly got that right, Orrin thought. I still don’t get it…
Sieg shook his head. “I… don’t r-really understand it completely either. B-but it’s… it’s like, like if you could step into a mirror, I guess. On the other s-side is a world like this one, b-but backwards.”
Orrin paused, trying to run Sieg’s words through his head - at least he hadn’t used any strange words to explain. Sieg certainly didn’t look like he just had his left and his right swapped around; parts of him looked completely different. It wasn’t just his looks, either: how he acted was different. Like right now he was all scared and frowning around the half-dwarf when he otherwise might have smiled…
Then it clicked. He looked up to Alain, understanding beginning to show on his face. “So like… happy is sad, good is bad, that kind of backwards?”
“In it’s own way, yes,” Alain smirked and continued. “From what I have gathered, the universe where he originates is one very much like our own, except for the fact that we are all Courdonians. Sieg in that universe, the Sieg here now, was born a slave. First to a minor nobleman called Baron Allendale and then,” here Alain broke eye contact. It was brief, tiny gesture but would have been unmissable to anybody who watched him closely for that single split second, “To my counterpart in that universe. Hence why Sieg called me “master”, as you saw.”
The Grand Duke waved his hand, dismissing the ugly thought of his Courdonian self. “I do not know many of the details of Sieg’s enslavement, you can ask him yourself if you feel like it, only that neither of his masters treated him kindly. A few months ago, however, something happened. I still do not know what but the result of that was that he was transported to this world. Since then, I’ve taken him on as a servant of House Stallion and my House has done its best to look after him.”
A smile appeared on his face. “And I’m sure that raises just as many questions for you as it answers. You can ask them, though whether I can or will answer them or not depends.”
Throughout this recitation, Sieg shrunk further and further into himself, refusing to meet Orrin’s eyes. There it was- now he knew that this creature sitting in front of him wasn’t the person he knew and clearly cared for, but some… strange magical accident. Sieg swallowed hard, and though he still refused to look Orrin in the eye, he said softly, “I… I’ll tell you wh-whatever you want to know. And I’m… I’m s-s-sorry. I didn’t want this, y-you weren’t supposed to see me. I’m sorry.”
Alain narrowed his eyes just a fraction. He had noticed that Sieg had not just been apologising to him for defying what he was told but unlike the others, this apology was directed at Orrin. And Sieg had mentioned he had known Orrin, even though the two had never met. He had suspected there was more to his indiscretion than simple curiosity but now he was almost certain. Nevertheless, he said nothing. There was no need for it, he would get his answers eventually.
Orrin was silent for some time, looking over at the former slave. "Ya... Earlier, ya said ya knew me," Orrin asked the former-slave. "What did ya... mean by that, exactly?"
Sieg shifted in the chair, his expression bleak. “J-just like there is a Grand Duke in the other world wh-where I was born, and there’s a me here in this world… I met a version of y-you, back in Courdon. I… I recognized you when I s-saw you in the kitchen, it’s wh-why I didn’t l-leave as soon as I saw you like, like I should have.”
“What happened happened. Admittedly your hesitation in the kitchen was a mistake but hardly a fatal one. It is at most a minor inconvenience, so you do not have to keep being afraid,” Alain interrupted and smiled at Sieg. “Actually, you answered the question I was wondering whether to ask of you in Sir Orrin’s presence. The fact that you knew him interested me, and explains why you were so curious in the first place.”
The half-elf winced at Alain’s words, but didn’t remark on them. Instead he looked up at Orrin again out of the corner of his eyes, waiting for his reaction.
Orrin watched Sieg. His posture, his movement… In most cases, he would have left a subject alone if it bothered someone that much. However, this was something that apparently involved copies of himself, and the half-elf he cared about so much.
“...There was somethin’ bad, wasn’t there,” Orrin said softly, his question really more of a statement.
The half-elf sighed. “If… if you r-really want to know I’ll tell you but, but when I told Lord Ambrose about his other self he… he didn’t like it. Are you s-sure?”
“Trust me, Sir Orrin, this is something you should think hard about,” Alain said. Just for a moment, uncertainty flashed in his eyes. “Once you learn it, you cannot unlearn it.”
So think Orrin did. It didn’t seem like the other him had been a tyrant to Sieg or something - the way Sieg didn’t run at first, and the way he apologized and pleaded… it didn’t fit. Something else was wrong. Something that seemed to be troubling Sieg deeply.
“...Like it or not, I think it might be better if I know.” He glanced at Alain, then back at Sieg. “Would ya rather tell me alone?”
The half-elf glanced at Alain, but shrugged. At the moment it didn’t really make a difference, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last into the recitation. “I… I’ll s-see,” he said softly.
Alain lowered his hands and watched Sieg carefully, waiting for him to begin.
The former slave leaned back a little in his chair, his eyes glazed with memory. "I met the, the Orrin of my world about a year, maybe a little more, after I was b-bought by the Stallions. I g-guess he'd been watching me for a while when I first s-started being sent into town for things. He was… I’m n-not sure how to explain it in Kythian, but he was a… he lived out on the s-street, and he was a th-thief.”
Orrin quirked an eyebrow at this. He wasn't sure what he expected, but a thief certainly was... interesting. Alain’s expression, however, remained perfectly neutral as he kept listening.
Sieg glanced up at the Stallion knight. “He l-looked exactly like you do, but, but he was different too. He didn’t walk upright, he sort of… shuffled around on his knuckles. And, and his Low Courdonian w-wasn’t very good, so when he s-spoke it was broken and he didn’t alw-ways know the right words to say what he w-wanted. He was smaller t-too, but that’s because he was younger, I think”
The half-elf swallowed. “Orrin was… c-curious about me, because I was also a, a halfblood. In Courdon nonhumans are s-subhuman, and half-bloods are… less than subhuman. I was n-nervous at first, but he helped me and r-risked getting caught by the g-guards to save me from being punished for l-losing something and he… he asked me to b-be his friend.”
A flash of pain came across Sieg’s face, but he forced it back - not before Orrin noticed, but the former slave still continued uninterrupted. “I’d never… n-no one ever asked me that b-before. I was a mongrel, a f-freak, lower even than the other s-slaves. I just… he didn’t even kn-know me, but he wanted s-so badly to help me. He… he w-was… that m-meant so much to me…”
Sieg shook his head, putting his face in his hands. “We h-had to keep it a secret, b-because he was a wanted c-criminal and b-besides that the way he looked was… A-anyway, we were okay for a few years, and, and I s-started looking forward to when my Master sent me into the c-city, because it meant I might s-see Orrin. I didn’t always, and we could only t-talk for a few minutes, but it was still…”
The half-elf looked up again, at the Kythian version of his friend- so tall, muscular, and broad shouldered. “He was… y-young when we met, but he got bigger. And bigger. A-and bigger. It was… hard for him t-to avoid notice, to escape the g-guards, and he still kept growing. Then… I stopped s-seeing him. Just… one day I r-realized it had been a month since I s-saw him last, and I started staying in the market longer than I was s-supposed to hoping he’d find me. But…”
The half-elf clenched his eyes shut, hunching over the table. He couldn’t cry, not in front of Alain, he couldn’t cry.
“I n-never f-found out for s-sure what happened t-to him. But, but it… it h-had to have been the g-guards, they must have… he wouldn’t have j-just left and n-not said anything, he’d have t-told me.”
An animal moan emerged from his throat without his permission, and he put his face down on the table to try and hold in the emotions- just like with Belial, he’d never really gotten the chance to properly mourn Orrin. Slaves didn’t cry, and if they were caught doing such things they were punished. Individuality, emotion, it was forbidden. But now, remembering it all again, seeing this man who was and was not his friend…
Orrin remained silent, just looking at the bereaved half-elf. So many thoughts... and the emotions...
He looked up at the Grand Duke with an asking expression. He glanced at the door and back at Alain, hoping he'd get the half-dwarf's silent request.
Alain caught the look in Orrin’s eye and smiled knowingly, realising he was not wanted here. He had already learned what he wanted, and judging by how much the half-elf struggled to hold in his emotions, he was not needed here either, by anybody.
“I’ll take my leave of you two. I’m sure there’s a lot you need to discuss,” he said, getting up from the bench and heading for the door. Once he had closed it behind it, the Grand Duke paused, listening for the sounds beyond the door. However, it was not long before he moved on. There was no need for him to hear what Sieg and Orrin were going to discuss.
Once Alain had left, the first thing the half-dwarf did was reach over the half-elf, pulling him gently onto a hug.
The half-elf’s body tensed on impulse. However, this gesture, so like what the Orrin of Courdon had done in an attempt to comfort him time and again, shattered something inside of Sieg. The half-elf went limp in Orrin’s arms, tears streaming down his face as his entire body shook with the force of his emotions. He didn’t shout or sob, but did occasionally voice that wet, ragged moan.
Orrin didn't attempt to comfort Sieg with words, instead allowing the half-elf to cry, feeling that perhaps the former slave needed it. He pulled the half-elf a little closer, leaning his own head on Sieg's as he shed a few tears of his own.
For a time the two of them stayed like that- neither of them was really sure how long, but at length the tears dried, and Sieg finally shook his head.
“I… I n-never, never even kn-knew for sure. I w-waited and waited… and part of me always hoped, but I kn-knew better.” He sniffled. “I’m sorry I r-ran from you but it… It wasn’t even j-just because his grace wanted me to av-void you. When, when I s-saw you it was... I’m s-sorry.”
Orrin continued to hold the half-elf, absentmindedly rubbing his black hair. "The pain never completely heals, does it?" he said knowingly.
Sieg shook his head. “I wondered sometimes what s-sort of person he could’ve been in… in a b-better world. Kind, and brave, and so determined to just… to help people. I always thought he should’ve been something… something great if o-only people saw him and not how he looked.”
“I guess…” The half-elf remarked softly. “I guess you’re proof I was r-right. Maste- his, his grace, he called you ‘Sir Orrin.’ So, y-you’re a knight? He said the me in this world was, but I d-didn’t really believe it. I’m s-such a coward, and weak…”
“Hey now,” Orrin started, an amused smile sneaking its way onto his face. “My Sieg’s not exactly the most fearless, either - don’t let anyone tell ya otherwise; the stories don’t get everything right. And from the way he gets embarrassed all the time, most people probably wouldn’t guess he’s a knight, either.”
Orrin looked at the former slave sympathetically. “And Alain said somethin’ about yer old masters treatin’ ya bad, right? So I don’t think it’s really yer fault, anyhow. At any rate, sometimes it’s not about not bein’ scared so much as bein’ scared and doin’ things anyway. Bein’ a knight, I should know that.
“And I did still have some problems with how I looked when I was a kid. Even the lord that knighted me didn’t like me that much.” He switched to his Booveen accent - a little rusty from lack of use - and gave his best impression of Miller. “‘Arise, Sir Ironbeard… and get out of my sight.’” He gave a weak chuckle. “Anyway, my knight master taught me that, yeah, maybe I’m a mixed-blood with four arms. But it’s what I choose to do that matters. Do ya get what I’m sayin?”
Sieg swallowed, his expression uncertain. “Choice… That’s not something I ever r-really had. I was b-born a slave, and whenever my masters even suspected I’d done something they didn’t like…” he held up one of his hands, almost more scar tissue than skin. “Everyone here k-keeps telling me that, that what I am doesn’t m-matter and I can ch-choose to do what I want with my life. But, but… I d-don’t know how. All m-my life there’ve been orders, and, and I… I knew my place. I d-didn’t like it, but I kn-knew what to expect. Now I don’t, and that’s… it scares me.”
“Uncertainty is a thing that happens, Sieg, and everyone gets scared at it.” Orrin paused. “Well, mostly at least. Some people find it fun, if only to find out new things. But like I said, sometimes it’s about doin’ things anyway. I’m not expectin’ ya to do it all at once, but it seems to me like ya did some already. I mean, ya probably weren’t sure what to think when ya first saw, er, me. The other me. And ya didn’t have to be friends, but ya did anyway. Ignorin’ how it… ended… how did that turn out?”
Sieg closed his eyes, for a moment seeming lost in memory. Then he gave a very small smile. “I t-told him so many times that it was dangerous, th-that I didn’t want him to get c-caught because of me. But w-we kept meeting anyway, because… it was s-something good. We d-didn’t have a lot, but, but we did the b-best we could for each other. He a-always did more for me, because he had m-more freedom than I did, but he d-didn’t mind. He would tell me ‘you is good’- that j-just me being there was enough. I… I felt a little bit less af-fraid of my m-master when I was with him.”
Orrin smiled warmly. “Sounds to me like it was worth it.” He was quiet again, an idea forming in his mind. “Say, how about I give ya a chance to try a small choice? It could help ya practice. I’m pretty good with bones, and back bones tend to get all crooked, not lined up the way they should be. If ya like, I could check yer back and see if I can get anythin’ a little straighter. Whadya say?” Something crossed his mind and he added “It doesn’t hurt, I promise.”
The offer surprised Sieg, but he glanced down at his hand, remembering the time that the Courdonian Orrin had set his finger in place when it had been dislocated. He smiled, and gave a small sigh. “Alright. J-just… careful? My back is r-really sensitive.”
Orrin laughed. “Ah yeh, the elf thing. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be a problem.” With a bit of a more serious note, he added “This does work better on someone who’s relaxed, though. Ya should try to relax yerself, but if ya have trouble… Is it alright if I used it to help?”
At first Sieg wasn’t sure what Orrin meant- no one had really used his back for that purpose since he was very small. Mostly it had just been a place for particularly harsh punishments. But then he realized what the half-dwarf was getting at, and he smiled. “Oh! Oh, s-sure. I’d almost forgotten, b-but sure. If it helps.”
Orrin glanced around at the room, assessing its contents. “Hmm… It works best if ya can lay on something where I can reach ya from both sides - soft, but not too soft. I don’t think the bench’ll work. I could use the carpet if I need to, I’ve worked with worse… I’m guessin’ ya’d prefer not to go somewhere else for it?”
The half-elf winced, “There’s not m-much of anywhere else where w-we can talk without b-being overheard. It’s… supposed to be a secret, wh-where I’m from. His grace says it’s s-simpler that way.” Sieg shrugged, an almost sardonic expression on his face. “I honestly never slept in a r-real bed before I came here- it was just a f-flagstone floor. I was…” he flushed a bit. “I was afraid of th-the beds, at first, because I thought I’d b-be punished for sleeping in one. A c-carpet’s not a b-big deal.”
Orrin gave a nod. Again, it wasn’t the best, but it would do. “Alright,” he said, gently letting go of Sieg. “Go ahead and lie down.”
For anyone else such a request might have been a bit eyebrow raising, but Sieg was accustomed to being asked to put himself in awkward positions on a fairly regular basis, usually for reasons explicitly foreshadowed as painful. He had already figured out that this version of Orrin was very different from the friend he’d known back in Courdon, but… he could still see that same compassion and eagerness to help. He instinctively trusted the half-dwarf, and without comment he slid off the bench and laid down on the carpet on his stomach, putting his chin on his crossed arms.
“Do… you need me to d-do anything specific?” he asked.
“I’ll let ya know,” Orrin said, bending down next to the half-elf. “For now, just try to relax.”
Orrin tried pressing down on Sieg’s back in various places, though not along the spine. He tested both the position of the bones and the tension in Sieg’s muscles. “Yer still tense,” he said. “Try relaxin’ a bit more.”
The half-elf felt his face warm up a bit. “S-sorry, I’m trying.”
He changed his position a bit, putting his head sideways on the floor so that his shoulders weren’t bunched up so much, but he wasn’t really sure how else to “relax” so to speak. Being tense and alert was a survival instinct, and he didn’t know how to turn that off.
Orrin tested again. There was still too much tension, and it only seemed to increase as the half-dwarf prodded. “Hmm… Try thinkin’ of somethin’ ya like,” he said. “See if that helps.”
Something he liked? Well… he liked Lord Ambrose, Lady Lucinda, and some of his friends among the servants. He remembered when Ambrose had shown him his inventing, and when Lucinda had helped him during his panic attack at the market, and when he’d started learning from her how to sing.
Oh!
Quietly, mostly to himself, Sieg started to hum. It was a tune that Lucinda had taught him as an exercise for his voice. Focusing on it helped relax him somewhat, and so he kept humming, hoping that would help.
Orrin listened as Sieg began to hum, and he smiled to himself. He watched as the half-elf began to relax, and he tested the tension again. “That might do it. Let’s give it a shot.”
Orrin gently took hold of the half-elf’s back, near the sides. He paused for a moment, both to let Sieg get used to the touch and to make sure he wouldn’t tense out of expecting when Orrin would try to adjust the bones. He paused, then quickly moved Sieg into another position, contorting his back. He could feel the half-elf tense again through the movement, reflexively, and he could tell that nothing had changed in his back.
“Nope. Still didn’t do it,” Orrin said, sighing within his mind as he set the half-elf back in a more normal position.
“I’m sorry,” the half-elf said softly, glancing around. “It’s… hard. P-people touching me it… it makes me j-jumpy.”
He held up his scarred hand again, and then touched his broken nose, hoping that would explain what he meant.
If Orrin had caught what he meant, he gave no indication to Sieg. “Alright. It’s okay, ya gave it yer best shot,” he said. “Stay on yer belly, and let yer arms down.” He watched and waited as Sieg did so, then positioned his fingers at the top of Sieg’s shirt. He slowly, gently ran them down the half-elf’s spine, stroking him through the clothing.
Sieg really hadn’t been ready for it- no one had stroked his spine this way since he was a small child, and he’d more or less forgotten what the sensation felt like. He shivered, feeling his knotted muscles relax almost instantly. They’d been so tight for so long that this alone was oddly relieving, like a cramp he didn’t know he’d had was suddenly gone. It wasn’t just his body either, his mind was hit with a pleasant, almost sleepy feeling that reinforced the easing of his tensed muscles. It was so strange, to actually feel a good sensation when someone touched his back, and he gave a soft, contented sigh.
“I… I th-think that worked,” he said, a small smile on his face. “I d-didn’t realize it w-would be… so s-strong.”
Yeah, it surprised me the first time, too, Orrin thought, but didn’t verbalize. “Yeh, looks like it worked.” When he finished his stroke, he took ahold of Sieg again. “I’m goin’ to give it another go.”
He almost told Sieg to relax again out of habit, but decided not to act on the impulse, feeling it redundant. Once ready, he contorted the half-elf again, and this time their ears were met with multiple pops. Orrin smiled in satisfaction. “There we go!”
The half-elf felt his back shift, but he was so startled by the sound he barely registered the physical sensation. He glanced around at Orrin again. “Wh-what was that?”
A smirk came up on Orrin’s face. “That’s parts of yer back goin’ more where they should be. It’s a good sign.” The half-dwarf noticed how startled Sieg was, and thought he might need to stroke his back again at least once before they were done. A thought crossed his mind and Orrin found himself chuckling. “Ya know, it’d be nice I could get more of the people I work on to relax as easily.”
The half-elf flushed a bit. “I’m g-glad it helps. It’s never been s-something I would have thought could be good for something. Just mostly hurting.” He put his head down again, and said, “So, um… c-can I ask you a question? Will it be t-too distracting?”
“Nah, go ahead,” Orrin replied, pausing his bone-healing for a moment.
“W-well I just wondered… I t-told you about the other you so… could you t-tell me about the me in this world? His grace said he w-was a knight, and brave and nice, and that here in Bern h-he’s a… a hero. But not much else.” The half-elf winced a bit, hurriedly adding, “Um, if you don’t want to tell me, th-that’s fine but-”
“Nah, nah. It’s fine,” Orrin said, waving a hand dismissively. He leaned his head back, smiling. “Well, he’s a bit of a doof. We’ll joke around a lot. He gets in trouble a lot, though usually to help people… Seems to blush over every little thing. He’s got a nice singin’ voice.” He gave the half-elf an encouraging smirk at that one. “If anyone starts tellin’ ya stories, ask about Haflinger,” he said with a wink.
“Anyway, let’s see… I mentioned he likes to help people. Likes makin’ them smile, too. He’s got this coin trick that he likes to show off, especially to kids. Quite a good swimmer, though not so good at climbin’...”
The half-elf glanced around at Orrin with an expression that was almost amused. “If you can climb anything like the Orrin I knew, I don’t think anyone would be ‘good’ by comparison.”
A laugh escaped from Orrin’s mouth that was nearly a guffaw. “Ya got me there. Trees seem to come naturally. Other stuff generally isn’t too hard, either.” He smirked at the half-elf. “I don’t suppose ya know anythin’ about swimmin’.”
Sieg shook his head, though an odd shadow came across his eyes. “N-no, water is rare in Courdon. It’s v-very dry. I never learned how to s-swim.”
Orrin noticed the shadow, but decided not to bother Sieg about it. “Yeh, that’d make sense. Nid’aigle’s got a river, so the other Sieg had plenty of opportunity. Not havin’ one makes a big difference.” Orrin paused quietly. “Should probably get back to work on yer, well, back. Don’t know how long we’ve kept the Grand Duke waitin’.”
“O-oh, right,” Sieg said, remembering. “G-go ahead, sorry.”
“Nah, it’s alright. We can keep talkin’ after if ya’d like. Maybe just keep it down to comments until then…”
Orrin continued to work on Sieg’s back, a number of pops filling the air along the way, giving Sieg instructions on which way to turn and where to put his arms in-between contortions. He checked the half-elf’s back now and again, seeing if there was anything else to work on.
“I think we’re good,” Orrin said after a few minutes of twisting and popping. “Go ahead and stand up.”
Sieg did so, bending his back experimentally. It felt more flexible than before, and he shook his head. “I… I don’t know how you d-did that, but thank you.”
Orrin gave a nod and a smile. “Yer quite welcome. Now, try not to slouch, it can be bad for yer back.” Another pause. “Is there anythin’ else ya’d like? Sit and chat some more, maybe?”
The half-elf hesitated, looking to the side uncertainly. On the one hand, he wanted to stay and talk to Orrin some more. On the other, he felt… strange doing so. It was clear from the way he talked that the Kythian Orrin liked the Kythian Sieg a great deal. The former slave couldn’t help but wonder if he had any real right to want to spend time with someone his counterpart was so close to- and if it wasn’t somehow a betrayal of his Orrin.
Orrin noticed the way that Sieg grew quiet as if there was something he wanted to say, but was afraid to. “Somethin’ on yer mind?” he asked.
Sieg sighed, sitting down on the bench at the table again. “I just… it’s so good here, in this world. Everyone is so kind to me. B-but, knowing that there’s already a ‘me’ here, and that he’s got so many friends and respect, and… I d-don’t know how I ended up in this world, and I don’t want to go back, not ever, but… do I really belong here? I’m just… I’m like a copy, a fake. I’m not the other Sieg, but I know that when people who know him see me, they see him and I just… I don’t know.”
“Hey…” Orrin knelt down in front of Sieg, putting his upper-arms on the half-elf’s shoulders. “I dunno about belongin’ but ya do not seem fake to me,” he said softly.
Sieg shook his head. “It’s just… I like you, I trust you, but I h-have a hard time trusting anybody. Is that… is that you, or because you remind me of the Orrin I remember? I d-don’t know, and I don’t know if, if his Grace or Ambrose would have e-even talked to me if I didn’t l-look like someone they recognized, I’d probably have j-just been thrown out when they found me here. I’m me, but there’s another me and… do the people who know both like me for me, or because of the other me?”
“Hey…” Orrin repeated. “I’ve spent time with Ambrose, and while I don’t know or like Alain as much, I don’t think yer givin’ either of them enough credit. They do try to help out people when they can, and from what I can gather, ya’d be someone who would catch their attention, anyway. I dunno what they’d do exactly, but I’m sure they’d do somethin’ to help.
“I can’t answer yer question about ya trustin’ me, but let’s see.” He paused and looked upward, taking some time to examine his memories and his feelings. After a few moments, he looked back at Sieg. “I’ll admit, ya remind me of him a lot. And not just the way ya look; ya act a lot like him, too. There might be somethin’ tyin’ my feelin’s, but I don’t think that’s all. I just... like helpin' people, especially if they're hurtin'," he explained. "And I wanted to help ya, somehow, at least a little. From what I hear, gettin' yer feelin's mixed up happens anyway...
"At any rate, yer not exactly the same, either. It doesn't seem like my feelin's are either. I don't think yer a copy. ...Maybe more like a twin? Anyway, given enough time, I'm sure they'll like ya for ya, if they don't already."
Sieg was reminded very forcefully of the Courdonian Orrin when the Stallion knight explained that he wanted to help- almost word for word the same as the street-rat’s “I want help you” from so many years ago. But not quite word for word- this man was certainly a lot more eloquent than the friend Sieg had known in Courdon. With his limited vocabulary and the need to keep their conversations hushed, the Courdonian Orrin had always exercised an extreme rationing of his words, saying what he needed to say and letting his expressions and gestures convey the rest. The Kythian Orrin was a lot more talkative, and he had less of the apelike tics that had been so frequently displayed by his Courdonian counterpart.
Similar, but not identical. And when he thought about it, Sieg realized that the feelings he felt weren’t the same either. He liked this Orrin, and instinctively trusted him, but there wasn’t that same sense of an almost painful kinship, like there was no one else in the world but the two of them and they were all each other could rely on.
“I… I think I understand what you mean,” Sieg said softly. “Thank you. For, for giving me your kindness. I know his grace didn’t want it but, I’m… I’m glad I got to meet you.”
“And I’m glad I got to help,” Orrin replied, giving Sieg a smile and a gentle squeeze of the shoulders.
The half-elf hesitated, then in a very small voice he said, “I… I know you have your own life in this world, and, and you just met me, so it’s okay if you say no but… Well Lord Ambrose, I send him letters in Medieville. I’m n-not very good at writing yet, but I’m trying to learn. Once you’ve finished with your task for His Grace, and you go to your home do you… would you mind if I…”
The half-dwarf’s smile broadened. “Write letters? Sure! Maybe I can send ya stuff while I’m in the Tarpan area. That and drop by on my way to Medieville…”
Sieg blinked, his head snapping up in surprise, “Y-you live in Medieville too?”
“Yeh sure,” Orrin replied. “Heck, I say in Stallion Manor. I was practically Ambrose’s bodyguard durin’ the Bloody Coronation.”
The half-elf smiled. “I… I didn’t know that. That makes it easier though- when you’re home I can send the letters both to the same place. I… th-thank you.”
He flushed a bit, looking aside with embarrassment. “Everything is so strange here, and I get nervous a lot. It’s h-hard, to trust that nothing bad’s going to h-happen. I don’t really, really know how to… how to live this life. But… Lord Ambrose, Lady Lucinda, the servants, they’re kind and it helps. So, so thank you, Orrin.”
A thought crossed Orrin’s mind about how there was always the possibility that something bad could happen, but he wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to tell the half-elf in front of him. Not at the moment, at least. He just seemed so… fragile. He didn’t want to risk crushing the hope that seemed so cautiously built up.
Thankfully, Sieg had mentioned something else to reply to. “Oh! You’ve met Lucinda? Maybe we can go chat with her before I have to leave.”
Sieg brightened. “Yes, she, she’s been very kind, she helped me when I had… she called it a panic attack? In the crowd on market day. She’s the one who found out I could sing, and she’s been teaching me. The lady doesn’t know where I’m really from, and I’m n-not going to tell her, but… yes, I think I’d like that. I have to w-work, but once I’m off, I’d like that.”
“Maybe tomorrow?” Orrin suggested. “I don’t have to leave until the day after.”
The half-elf nodded. “Tomorrow's fine.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I… I guess I’d b-better talk to… to his grace about n-not working in the b-back areas anymore.”
Sieg shivered a little at the idea of talking to Alain about anything, but he’d already said that Sieg wasn’t in trouble. A thought suddenly occurred to the half-elf, and he sniffled a bit, rubbing his eyes as they started to sting.
Orrin had noticed the shudder, and when Sieg started to cry, he found himself worrying again. “Ya okay?”
“I’m f-fine,” the former slave said, looking up at Orrin with a wide smile. “I j-just realized… I w-was taking it for granted. Having time off to j-just do things. Slaves never, never have time off and I thought I’d never g-get used to it. But I, I just s-said it and then thought about something else, like it w-was nothing.”
Much of Orrin’s worry faded, and he found himself smiling. “In some ways, I think that’s a good thing. Goes to show how much things have changed for ya.” I thoughtful expression came upon Orrin’s face. “Hmm… Maybe ya should make a list. Write down all the things ya’ve got that ya didn’t have before. It could help keep ya from completely takin’ things for granted, help ya remember what ya have to be glad for.”
The half-elf tilted his head. “I could try, though I th-think it would take me all day. But, but that’s not such a bad thing.”
He sighed, looking at the door. “I s-should probably go back to work… and I b-bet you have stuff to do too…”
“Yeh, gotta make sure everythin’s ready before I have to go…” Orrin commented.
Sieg stood up, “I th-thought so. I guess we should both g-get back to work. But… I’ll see you later?” he added hopefully.
Orrin smiled. “Tomorrow, if nothin’ else. And I’ll make sure to send ya those letters afterward.”
Conflicted - Countryswap Crossover AU Alain scenes collabed with Celestial
It was the fourth hour past dawn, and already Seamus Dun had been at work in the records room for a good long while. Having taken over as the bookkeeper for Destrier Castle after Kirin Mao was transferred to the service of Stallion Manor and Lord Ambrose, he had a lot of work to do even this early in the day. But not so much he couldn’t take some time for other tasks- which was fortunate, because his tallying of the past month’s accounts was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Come in!” he called sitting up straight and wiping the ink off of his quill with a rag. There was a soft creak as the door opened, and a black haired man with a slender figure inched into the room. Recognizing him, the bookkeeper beamed.
“Ah, good mornin’ Sieg!” Seamus said cheerfully, beckoning for the servant to approach. “How’re ye this fine day?”
“I’m alright,” the man replied. “You, um… wanted to see me?”
“That I most certainly did! C’mere a second, I want tae show yeh something.”
He gestured at a small stool that was sitting on the opposite side of his desk, indicating that Sieg should sit down. As the man moved further into the room, more details of his face became obvious. The man’s eyes were unlike any normal person’s eyes- a bright shade of amber that shimmered in the light of the sun shining through the windows. Framing his face on both sides of his head where long ears that tapered off into points at the top. His eyes and ears were the mementos of a heritage that was seldom seen in Bern- or anywhere else for that matter, though particularly in Bern. Sieg was, in fact, a half elf, the son of a human mother and an elven father. A novelty, to say the least, and the source of no small amount of curiosity in Destrier Castle.
But there were more insidious details to take in as well. Sieg had a crooked nose that had once been badly broken and never healed properly; just under his right eye was a thin scar, like someone had traced a knife up his lower eyelid but changed their mind about actually gouging his eye at the last second; another scar on the left side of his chin, that traced almost up to his mouth. All signs that pointed to one of two possible conclusions- either the man had been a fighter in a previous life, or he’d been the victim of horrible torture. The slump-shouldered, submissive way he walked and the way he flinched at every unexpected noise and gesture advertised plainly which of those interpretations was the correct one.
Not for the first time, Seamus felt his heart twist with sympathy. Like the rest of the castle staff he’d been told about Sieg’s unfortunate history- that the half-elf was an escaped slave from Courdon, brought into the castle service to give him a chance to rebuild his life in a safe environment doing work that was familiar to him. Or, not to rebuild his life, because that implied he’d had one to begin with and lost it. No, he had to construct a life for himself, an identity for himself, from the ground on up. He’d never known how to make his own decisions and function as an individual, and any attempts on his part to learn how were met with punishment out of all proportion to anything a sane mind would conjure up. Now the poor man was a terrified, broken mess of irrational phobias, bad associations and cruel psychological conditioning that scarcely resembled a functional human being.
The half-elf sat down in the stool, his head tilted with curiosity though his expression was rather neutral. It often was- except when he was afraid or very happy about something, Sieg’s expressions were subtle and took a keen eye or a lot of time in his company to catch on to. It didn’t help that for the most part he wasn’t very talkative. He’d gotten better at talking since his initial hire, but when given the option he still tended towards silent observation over putting himself out there. Seamus wasn’t exactly a master at reading people- he was much better at grasping the nuances of numbers than humans- but he was starting to pick up on the man’s signals.
“Now I had a word wi’ his grace th’ other day, ‘n he reckons it’d be a good idea fur ye tae learn some arithmetic. Nothing fancy, mind ye, just how tae count ‘n some basic figuring. May make it a little easier to figure out how tae spend that money yeh’ve been hoarding, eh?”
The half-elf blushed a bit. “I just don’t really know… I’ve never had money before, so I’ve never bought anything. I’ve food and clothes and a place to sleep… what would I buy?”
“Well fun things, tae start with,” Seamus said with a grin. “But that’d be up tae yeh tae figure out. Tell me Sieg, how well kin yeh count?”
“Um…” he looked down at his fingers, brow furrowed in concentration. Seamus could see him putting down fingers as he mentally calculated, and finally the half-elf looked up again. “I can… I can count the fingers on one hand, but…”
“Aye, I figured it would nae be much. No worries, can’t really fault yeh fer that. It isn’t like figuring just comes to somebody out of thin air, after all, yeh need tae be taught. ‘N teaching is what I aim tae do now.”
He picked up a small slate and a bit of chalk, and drew the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 on it.
“Now I know yeh say yeh kin count to five- that’s how many fingers yeh have on one hand- but I reckon ye’ve never seen what those numbers actually look like…”
Seamus handed the chalk over to Sieg, instructing him to try and copy the numbers on the slate. As he half-elf worked, Seamus couldn’t help but find his eyes drawn to the scars that spider-webbed Sieg’s fingers. He had almost more scar than healthy skin on his hands. Particularly noticeable were several squarish blotches in the web of tender skin between the fingers of his right hand. Seamus didn’t know how exactly he’d gotten those scars, or any of the others, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to. He just wanted to make sure Sieg didn’t accumulate any more.
He was far from the only resident of the castle to pity the half-elf, and to try as best he could to give Sieg some measure of security and respect to help build his confidence. But for some reason, of all the people he’d spent time with, aside from Lord Ambrose and Lady Lucinda it seemed that Seamus was the one with whom he felt most comfortable. Through gentle coaxing and generally being as cheerful as ever he’d been in his life, Seamus had managed to forge a very fragile bond of trust with the former slave. Sieg seemed to like the bookkeeper and enjoy his company. Seamus wasn’t sure why he’d been singled out, but if he could give Sieg some small measure of comfort, he was darn well going to.
But the more time the bookkeeper spent with Sieg, the more he found himself sincerely liking him. Though he was timid and broken, and reinforcing that he was not unworthy of help again and again in the face of his protestations was an exercise in patience, there was a quiet sort of spirit to the half-elf that wasn’t immediately obvious. It was like a flame; one that was barely embers, smothered with ash and badly in need of stoking. It was usually hidden by his traumas, but occasionally he’d smile or get childishly excited about something in a way that that proved he wasn’t a lost cause. He was alive and sane enough to be curious about the world he’d been kept in ignorance of for so long. Courdon had broken him, but it had not destroyed him. Not completely.
Seamus managed to get Sieg as far as the number nine that first day, but decided that was a good place to stop for the time being. Seeing and writing double-digit numbers would likely confuse the half-elf, and Seamus wanted to give him time to really learn the first nine single-digit numbers before trying to explain about how the double-digits worked.
“Yer doin’ a fine job s’ far,” he assured his pupil, and had to hide a smile as Sieg brightened visibly at the praise. He always reacted very strongly to compliments, to the point where Seamus suspected he’d have done anything someone asked of him if only they praised him afterwards. No doubt due to being starved of attention and positive reinforcement in Courdon, where the lash was lord. Dismissing that subject from his mind, the bookkeeper glanced out the window at the sun. “It’s right about lunchtime now; what say you’n me go into the city fer it? My treat.”
“Wha- are you sure?” Sieg bleated, his expression panicked. “Wh-what if I’m needed here, I’ve work…”
“What, no one’s told yeh?” Seamus demanded. “Sieg, yeh know ye’ve an hour break fer lunch, aye?”
The half-elf blinked. “Yes…”
“Well yeh dinnae have tae take yer break here at the castle. If yer minded, yeh kin take those wages yeh’ve been gettin’ and have a bite tae eat down in the city, s’long as yeh get back before yer break’s done.”
“I… oh,” the half-elf glanced aside as he processed this. “I didn’t… I didn’t know.”
“I gathered,” Seamus remarked. “S’okay, can’t really expect yeh tae know these things unless someone tells yeh. But remember, yer free now. What you do with yer time off is up tae yeh, and not a soul kin tell you different.
Sieg didn’t seem to have a reply for this, but there was a small, bashful smile on his face. The bookkeeper returned that smile with a broad grin of his own.
“Speakin’ o’ time off, Sieg did ye have any plans fer tomorrow night? Some of the fellas are goin’ down for a drink in town ‘n they mentioned wantin’ yeh to come with.”
The half-elf shook his head. “I didn’t have anything. But are, are you sure they want me along? I’m not exactly… the last time I went to the bar to drink with them ended k-kind of badly.”
An understatement, to say the least. His first week working at the castle a handful of the other servants had invited him out drinking with them- partially to get to know him better and partially to make him feel welcomed. Sieg had never had anything alcoholic before, just water and on rare occasions old small beer, and Bernian ale was… potent. It hadn’t taken much at all of it to get the former slave extremely drunk. Sieg maintained a carefully controlled mask over his own emotions, necessary to survive in Courdon where slaves were expected not to have or express emotions, and were punished for doing so. Since alcohol lowers inhibitions, that meant his mask had crumbled into pieces, exposing the gnarled mess of depression, agonizing fear, and bitter self-loathing that pervaded most of Sieg’s thoughts. It had been a disaster, ending with him weeping over the table at the bar and the other servants- who had a higher tolerance and were not yet even tipsy by the time Sieg’s histrionics started- trying awkwardly to comfort him. It was something of a relief for everyone involved when he eventually passed out and they were able to carry him back to the castle. He’d gone out with them a few more times since then, but always refused anything alcoholic. It made him feel like rather the odd-man-out, as if he were ruining the fun of the others by not getting inebriated alongside them.
“If they dinnae want yeh, I reckon yeh wouldn’t get invited,” Seamus pointed out. “Cheer up, lad, ‘n make some friends. It’ll do yeh a world o’ good.”
The half-elf smiled sadly. “I… I like the people here. Lady Lucinda and the other servants and… and you too. It’s just, I feel like I should be doing something. Like…” he seemed to grapple with what he was trying to say, something that happened fairly often since he wasn’t used to expressing his thoughts verbally. In Courdon he wouldn’t have been allowed to.
“I’m not giving them anything in return,” he said finally. “Everyone is so kind, but I just take their kindness and don’t give anything back.”
“Give it time, Sieg,” Seamus said gently. “Yer still gettin’ yer feet under yeh. Yeh’ll find yer place, I’ve nae doubt o’ that.”
Sieg sighed. “I hope so.”
“I know so,” he bookkeeper affirmed again. “Now, how about lunch, ye up for it?”
The half-elf smiled. “I think I’d like that, thank you Seamus.”
* * * * *
Sieg did end up agreeing to go to the bar with the other servants, in spite of his misgivings on the subject. The truth was that he was lonely, as he’d admitted to Lucinda once, and he didn’t feel right hanging off of her and Seamus constantly when they had their own friends and things to do during the day. If the rest of the castle servants wanted to make overtures of friendship, well… what was the harm?
That thought brought Sieg up short a little. Had he honestly just dismissed the potential ways a situation could go wrong so casually? He was always on his guard, he had to be in order to survive. It was a frightening thought, that he might be becoming complacent, that he might be losing his constant vigilance. The half-elf didn’t like being scared of everything all the time, but that didn’t mean he wanted to take his safety for granted. Even here there were dangers, Lucinda had warned him of as much.
And yet the other servants had, thus far, done nothing to intentionally hurt him. There’d been that incident with the cook on Market Day, but Sieg was still inclined to think that fiasco had been at least partially his own fault. He didn’t know if Lucinda had really chastised the man or not as she claimed she intended to, but he hadn’t received any orders from him since, so she probably had. Which left the servants who were indifferent to Sieg- of which there were many- and those who were kind to him. The indifference didn’t bother Sieg any, it wasn’t dissimilar to how the slaves treated each other and he’d have been extremely suspicious if absolutely everyone here was nice to him without any reason to be. But those few who extended their kindness to him had done so willingly, and he could discern no sort of trap from their actions. Was it really so bad, to want to trust them as he trusted Ambrose and Lucinda?
Internal conflicts aside, when the appointed time came Sieg was waiting at the gate, not the first to arrive but not the last either. Among those who were waiting were three of the other low-ranking servants who cleaned and ran errands as Sieg did, Vince, Lucian, and Giles, a man who worked in the kennels named Alan, and one of the gardeners named Blaise.
“I think that’s everybody who agreed tae come along,” Giles remarked as Alan was trotting up to them. “We ready then, lads? Let’s all have some fun tonight!”
There was a general muttering of cheerful agreement, though as was his habit Sieg didn’t speak. Though he found that conversation was starting to come to him more easily around people he was close to, such as Lady Lucinda or Ambrose, he still preferred the expedience of silence when his input wasn’t expressly needed.
He followed the other servants as they walked down the hill, heading to one of the local taverns. There was a good deal of genial conversation, which they made a point to try and include him in. The topics were many and varied, from which pretty maid they had taken a fancy to that week to what was playing at the theater next month. Sieg didn’t have much to contribute to these conversations, but he did his best to answer when they engaged him and listened with rapt attention to everything. The more he heard about life here, the faster he could master living it.
When they finally reached the bar, it was a relief to be able to sit down at a table. As always they ordered a round of drinks, Sieg keeping to a non alcoholic cider. The other servants could hold significantly more of the stuff then Sieg could, and for a while the conversations proceeded as normal.
“So Sieg,” Lucian asked at one point, as the drink was starting to get to him. “How are yer music lessons with Lady Lucinda going? Yeh haven’t given us any concerts yet.”
The half-elf flushed, a timid smile on his face. “W-well they’re… I think they’re going nicely. At least, the lady doesn’t seem to be disappointed with my progress. But I, I didn’t want to cause a distraction by singing in the servants quarters or-”
“Oh come off it, man,” Giles put in cheerfully, obviously a little tipsy by that point as well. “There’s plenty o’ us that whistle while we work. It won’t hurt anything if you do a little singin’. C’mon, give us a show!”
Sieg tried to object, citing the fact that he really didn’t know many songs that weren’t in Elvish, but the other servants all chimed in with agreement and after a few moments he blushingly relented. Wracking his brain for the half-remembered songs of his childhood, he sung first one, then at the encouragement of the other servants, all of the rest of the songs he could remember. It was flattering, and while the half-elf was fairly certain their enthusiasm was at least partially inspired by the alcohol they were consuming, he didn’t in the least mind doing something that they were willing to praise him for. For once in his life he was actually happy being the center of attention.
Eventually they let the conversation drift to other things, giving Sieg’s voice a break. He made a mental note to ask Lucinda to teach him some local songs- it wasn’t uncommon for the servants to sing themselves when they got drunk, and if he sang something they were familiar with they might just be able to sing along. It might even be fun.
As the night progressed the faces of the other servants gradually grew flushed, their eyes unfocused, and their words slurred. The conversation topics trailed from commonplaces into subjects a lot more embarrassing and bawdy. For the most part Sieg kept silent- it wasn’t like he had any experience with such things after all. However, he found himself drawn back into their conversations rather unlike he might have expected.
“Y’know Sieg I been thinkin’,” Blaise put in suddenly. “I been thinkin’ a lot and I wondered; them scars on yer fingers. How’d yeh get those? They’re not like… I dunno I always thought slaves just got whipped or something?”
Alan, still marginally more aware than his compatriot, glanced at Sieg in panic at this question. For his own part, Sieg looked down at his hands, which were resting on the table. While he did have some lash marks on the backs and palms of his hands, it was true that the scars on his fingers were far too thin for that.
“Not all of them are from the same thing,” he explained softly, his voice taking on the hollow quality it always did when he spoke of his abuses in Courdon. “A lot though, are from a tool my first master had me use a lot. It was a sort of punishment he used if he thought we’d shirked in our cleaning. We called it the bloody broom.”
Sieg shuddered. “It was a broom that had the handle purposely… roughened, I suppose? It wasn’t sanded and it was scratched and picked at so that there were a lot of splinters. And it had shards of glass jammed in the wood too. Not the most painful thing that was ever done to me but… it still wasn’t, wasn’t pleasant. Especially when the smaller splinters or glass shards got stuck in my hand for days.”
The servants were staring at him, horrified, but Sieg wasn’t done. Pointing to some deeper gouges on the tops of his fingers he went on, “Here was where my hands were stuck in a cage with a starving rat… and these,” he pointed to a set of angry looking brown scars in the webs between his fingers, “Are where I was punished for, for becoming too emotional after my father’s death. My master took a clamp and heated it up in a fire, and then-”
“Stop, fer the love of Woo, stop!” Lucian bleated, swatting Blaise on the back of the head. “You dinnae need tae keep talkin’ Sieg, ignore this idiot’s blatherin’.”
Sieg shook his head, his eyes distant. “It’s alright. That’s just how it was.”
The gardener looked away, shamefaced. “I’m sorry man… that’s some, some heavy stuff. I shouldn’t o’ asked, Lucian’s right. But!” his expression became triumphant. “I know how to fix this. I can make it better, I can, watch!”
Before the half-elf had time to try and figure out what was going on, the drunken Blaise seized his hands. The former slave tensed, his entire body going rigid with panic and being grabbed so suddenly, but to his surprise Blaise actually kissed Sieg’s fingers, then patted them with his free hand. “There yeh go, all better! Just, just like Mama used to do!”
The other servants roared with laughter at the utterly dumbfounded look on Sieg’s face. Gradually a flush spread across the bridge of Sieg’s nose and spread until his entire face was as crimson as the drunkards around him. That only made them laugh harder, and he covered his face, torn between confusion, mortification, and an odd feeling for which he had no name. After a moment he realized that his shoulders were shaking, but not with fear- his mouth was quirking up just slightly at the corners, and his breath was emerging as an odd, strangled sort of huffing. He realized after a moment the feeling he didn’t recognize was amusement.
“I never know how to feel about this place,” he remarked, lowering his hands and looking up at the other servants with a lopsided smile. “But… thank you, all the same.”
“Yer definitely welcome,” Blaise said. He lifted his tankard. “A toast to mom’s magic kisses!”
Sieg’s breath caught in his throat in that odd huffing pattern again, and he covered his mouth. As the others lifted their drinks to join in on Blaise’s toast, he sighed and did the same.
* * * * *
It was a week and a half later, just at the start of September, when Seamus shoved his account book away with a sigh of exasperation.
“I think the merchants have been weighin’ down the hayseed bags with sand. We had tae buy a fifth again as much as last month but we haven’t purchased any new beasts.”
Sieg, who had been practicing drawing numbers and arranging them in order, looked up in confusion. “Hayseed?”
“For the horses,” Seamus clarified. “We buy hayseed tae feed them with, ‘n it’s priced by weight. So we pay so much for so many pounds o’ the stuff. But if the merchants mix sand in the bags, we don’t get as much seed as we pay for. So they skim money off the top without any expense tae them.”
“Oh,” the half-elf frowned. “So they’re cheating us?”
“Dinnae know fer sure, but there’s got tae be some reason the horses aren’t gettin’ enough out o’ what we usually buy,” the bookkeeper said, picking up a pen and copying down the account logs from the previous month and the current one. “‘N it’d also explain the rash o’ stomach upsets we’ve been seein’ in the beasts lately. The hostlers thought it was just a bug goin’ around. His grace is not goin’ tae be pleased.”
Sieg gave an involuntary shudder at those words. He knew all too well what happened when Alain was displeased. He constantly tried to remind himself that this Alain was different, but when he imagined how his former master would have reacted to such a slight…
“So,” he said, quickly trying to steer his mind away from that vein. “So the horses are very important to his grace then?”
“Oh aye, of course,” Seamus said, looking surprised. “I mean this is House Stallion, horses are their crest animal.”
Sieg put a hand up to his arm, where the Stallion brand was. “Ah, right. I remember.”
Noticing Sieg’s discomfort, Seamus coughed. “So ah… oh! Yeh ever seen the house’s personal warhorses? Stallion breeds them specially; they’re called Bernian Noblesses. Big silver beasties, absolutely beautiful animals.”
Sieg looked up, shaking his head. He never had any business that took him down to the stables, that was the territory of the grooms and hostlers. And when he needed to go into town for something he just walked.
“Come with me then, we can have a quick look,” the bookkeeper said cheerfully. “It’s worth it trust me. ‘N I should go down anyway tae double-check that my tallies are right with the hostlers before I talk to his grace.”
Sieg smiled slightly, something he was doing a lot more then when he first started working at the castle back in July. “Alright, I think I’d like that.”
“Excellent,” Seamus said, closing his account book and folding up his tally sheet to stow in his sleeve. “C’mon, I bet you’ll love it.”
Seamus took Sieg downstairs, and out past the gardens to the huge area of the cast complex set aside for the stables. Seamus took him past several buildings, to one in particular which had the Stallion crest on a metal shield over the door.
“Here we are,” the bookkeeper said cheerfully, pushing open the door and letting Sieg inside. “Meet the Stallion family treasure; the Bernian Nobelesses.”
Sieg couldn’t help it; he gawked. The horses inside the building were huge, so big that he’d have had to use a stepladder to climb on one of their backs. Bulky and muscular as well, they made an imposing image. All of them were in shades of grey, from silver to dark slate grey, and their feet had a slight feathering.
“Don’t try tae pet ‘em, I can’t promise they’ll take too kindly to that,” Seamus cautioned, “But look as much as yeh like. They’re really beautiful animals.”
The half-elf, turned to Seamus, his amber eyes wide. “I’ve… I’ve never seen these pulling the carriages or-”
“Well o’ course not. The Nobelesses are warhorses. Stallion family rides them intae battle, or out on hunts. Sometimes someone who does somethin’ special fer the family will get one as a token o’ appreciation. But they have other horses to ride casual or to pull the carriages.”
Eventually Sieg had seen enough of the giant warhorses, and allowed Seamus to steer him back out into the open. As he looked around, he noticed that a young stablehand, a child by the looks of him, was out in one of the paddocks exercising a pair of young horses. He was calling out commands to them, and signalling with his hands as they ran circles around the small enclosure. They were much smaller than the warhorses he’d just been looking at, and they were palomino rather than grey.
“What are those? They’re not the Nobelesses.”
“Nah, they’re a different breed,” Seamus confirmed. “Looks tae me like they might be Ursine Plain Horses, but I’m not really an expert, I admit. Either way they’re pretty small, must be yearlings. He’s probably working on gentling them.”
“Gentling? What does that mean?” Sieg asked. Seamus chuckled.
“It’s horse talk fer taming- basically teaching them not tae be afraid o’ humans ‘n tae think of us as part o’ the horse herd- a weird, two legged part, but still part. Yeh have tae get the horses used tae people before yeh can ride ‘em.”
“Oh,” Sieg said, digesting this as he watched. He’d never really spent much time around horses back in Courdon, he never had a reason to. They were beautiful, he had to admit. They moved quickly and gracefully, something surprising from creatures so big. He could easily see why they were so prized by House Stallion, even apart from the thing with the word for an unaltered male being the family name.
“Here Sieg, how about yeh wait here ‘n watch the yearlings while I go ‘n talk tae the hostlers about the feed?” Seamus suggested. “Shouldnae take long, ‘n then we can head back up tae the castle.”
“Oh, sure,” Sieg agreed, nodding. He was a little uncomfortable being left alone in an unfamiliar place, but this was still the grounds of Destier Castle and the building itself was plainly visible so he really wasn’t likely to get lost. At least that’s what he told himself, it was still hard not to feel a little tense.
He watched Seamus walk away, heading for another smaller building, before turning back to watch the young boy with the yearlings. Sieg wondered why such a young child was permitted to work with such huge animals. The half-elf had seen young boys in Destrier Castle working as pages while training to become knights, but this seemed a little different and very strange to him.
Turning his gaze back to the horses, Sieg watched as they ran circles around the inside of the paddock. They really were beautiful animals. It was almost hypnotic the way they moved, and he found his thoughts drifting as he watched them. Two months now- two months he’d been working at the Kythian Destrier Castle. It didn’t feel like that long, the time had really flown. Sieg still didn’t entirely understand how he had even come to be in this strange place. One moment he was running errands for his master, the next he was hit by a wave of dizziness and a flash of white. Then suddenly he was in this place, where everyone was nice to him and his scars weren’t normal slave marks but something to be horrified at and sympathetic of. Every day it felt like he was being faced with new ideas and experiences that challenged everything he’d ever thought he knew about the world in Courdon. Yet for all that he constantly felt off-balance, unsure how to react to all of these unfamiliar situations and discouraged from acting on his training to be totally servile, he liked it here.
He started to hum softly under his breath as he mused, watching the horses run. It wasn’t any song in particular, just a tune he made up as he went along. He liked music, he’d discovered, and more then that he was good at it. It was such a novel idea, to be good at something. At least something that wasn’t cleaning or carrying messages. Something good and worthwhile, something other people appreciated.
One of the horses tossed its head, it’s movements becoming more and more energetic. The boy made soothing noises, gesturing at the yearling as it came around the pen to pass him again. But to Sieg’s surprise, the yearling didn’t run past the boy as it had been doing- instead, it ran directly up to him, spinning on it’s front legs and flailing out with the rear ones. The boy raised his arms with a wild shout, and Sieg felt his stomach lurch as the hooves connected with a sickening crunch on the boy’s arm. He screamed, falling backwards so that his head slammed into the fence. The horse that had kicked him turned again, stamping and kicking, clearly about to have another go, but the boy didn’t move- his eyes were unfocused and his expression dazed from hitting the fence even as tears of pain streamed down his face.
Sieg didn’t think- he just reacted. Grabbing on to the top of the fence with both hands, he pulled himself up on a lower plank and then vaulted over the side. “Watch out!” he shouted to the boy, who was still stunned and unmoving. The yearling’s head jerked up at the sound of Sieg’s voice, and it shied away from the stranger- putting distance between itself and the injured boy. Taking advantage of this, the half-elf darted to where the child lay crumpled and knelt beside him.
“Are you alright?” he asked in a hushed tone, as he’d done a thousand times before when he found slaves in Allendale’s manor or the Courdonian Alain’s castle lying broken and bloody after a punishment. Like many of those had been the boy was unresponsive, but in this situation he couldn’t do as he usually did and just tend the child on the spot. The horse was coming around again, and he could see the second yearling getting agitated in response to the first’s excitement.
“Och! Sieg what are yeh doin’ in there?” Seamus called, running up to the fence. Sieg flinched, his jaw clenching- caught, caught, he’d been caught…
No, no, this wasn’t Courdon. He wouldn't’ be punished, not for this. These people, they wouldn’t fault him for trying to save a human child’s life if they cared enough about a half-breed to be so kind to him. Ignoring Seamus, Sieg knelt down and grabbed the boy’s undamaged arm, pulling him up so that he could brace the child on his shoulder. The half-elf wasn’t very strong, but thankfully the pain of his bad arm jostling seemed to finally rouse him, and the boy whimpered.
“Hurts,” he muttered softly, his voice still groggy from hitting the fence.
“You’re alright, I promise,” Sieg reassured him. “We need to get out of here though, the horse is still dangerous.”
The child seemed to come a little more alert at this, looking around in panic and sobbing as his arm jostled. Sieg gave his good side another tug towards the gate of the enclosure.
“Come on, you’ll be okay, you just need to walk with me.”
The yearling was coming around again, Sieg could hear its hoof beats. The stable boy was moving painfully slowly, whimpering with every small movement, and Sieg knew the horse would overtake them again before they got out of the enclosure. But he clenched his teeth and kept close to the frightened, dazed child. Just as the horse was almost on them, someone the half-elf didn’t know also jumped the fence, shouting and clapping his hands to spook the animal into backing away. Glancing around, Sieg realized by the uniform the man must have been one of the hostlers. Turning his attention back to the child, Sieg led him the rest of the way to the gate and managed to get it open, get out, and get it back shut again while the hostler was distracting the horses.
With a cry of relief the boy leaned back against the fence, cradling his damaged arm close to his chest. Now that Sieg was able to get a good look at it, he could see it twisted at an unnatural angle- clearly broken. The half-elf winced in sympathy. The slave lords and overseers never broke bones if they could help it, since a broken bone limited a slave’s ability to work. However, Sieg’s mangled nose was a testament to the fact that sometimes they got angry and careless- or just felt sadistic and were creative enough to aim for a bone that wouldn’t impede the slave’s productivity much.
Before he could say anything, however, he heard Seamus’ voice call out sharply. “Sieg! The ‘Pit do yeh think yeh were doin’ in there? That horse could have killed you!”
Sieg flinched in on himself, ducking his head and bowing on impulse at the reprimand. Was he going to be punished after all? “I, I just, I’m s-sorry, I saw the boy fall and he wasn’t getting back up and I panicked and-”
“Woah, hey, calm down,” Seamus said in a gentler voice, taking hold of Sieg’s shoulder. The ex-slave flinched a little at the touch, and Seamus sighed. “Look, I’m sorry fer snappin’ at yeh. Yeh just scared me, running in the way of a kickin’ colt. But yeh saved the kid, so I can’t fault yeh for it.”
Sieg let his shoulders fall again, a tiny, shy smile on his face. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to stand there and watch…”
“It’s okay, just be more careful next time, aye?” Seamus said with a shaky return smile. Turning his attention to the child he asked, “What about him, is he okay?”
Sieg knelt next to the boy. “His arm’s b-broken, but I’m, I’m not sure what else. Young sir? Do you hurt anywhere else?”
The child leaned into Sieg’s shoulder with a sob, startling the half-elf. He tensed for a moment, but remembering how Ambrose had reacted when Sieg had cowered into him during the interview with Alain, Sieg hesitantly put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and patted his back.
“You’re okay. It, it hurts I know, but you’re okay. I promise, you’re safe, you’ll be fine. Please, can you tell me if it hurts anywhere but your arm?”
The boy sniffled, pressing his face harder into Sieg’s shirt. “My head hurts,” he mumbled through the fabric. “But I th-think it’s mostly just my arm.”
“He fell and hit his head on the fence,” Sieg explained to Seamus. “He was s-stunned by it. I think that’s why his head hurts.”
“Nae doubt,” the bookkeeper agreed, glancing towards the hostler who had helped them escape the paddock. Sieg followed his gaze and saw that the man was busying himself getting the horses corralled into a smaller area so he could get them stabled.
He felt something warm and wet on his shoulder, and realized the boy was crying again. Turning his full attention back to the child, he murmured soft reassurances and stroked the back of his head, as the half-elf could vaguely remember Belial doing to him when he was still a child.
“We’ll need tae get the kid tae the physicians,” Seamus said. “C’mon, I’m sure the hostlers will let us borrow a cart- ‘n a horse that doesn’t kick.”
Sieg nodded, gently pushing up on the boy’s shoulders to get him to sit up. “We’re going to take you to get your arm looked at, alright? The physicians will help you so it hurts less. They helped me a few months ago when I had a cut on my hand, they’re very good. Do you think you can come with us, young sir?”
“R-Roger,” he said softly. “My name is Roger. And I think so. I can s-still walk, but my arm really, r-really hurts.”
Sieg smiled comfortingly. “It’ll be better once the physician looks at it, Roger, I promise. You’ll be fine, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
As Seamus walked away to get a cart, the boy sniffled. “Who are you, anyway? You have the castle uniform, but I’ve been working here two years and I’ve never seen you before.”
“My name is Sieg,” the ex-slave explained. “I just, just started here two months ago. This is my first time near the stables.”
He digested this, still holding his arm close to his chest. After a moment he asked, “Why are your ears funny?”
Sieg winced, reaching up a hand instinctively as if to cover the pointed tips of his ears before letting the hand fall again. He knew the child was just trying to distract himself from the pain in his arm, but he couldn’t help feeling a prickle of shame at the knowledge of how his ears looked at what that meant. “My father was an elf. I have pointed ears because I’m… I’m a half-elf.”
Roger gasped. “A half-elf? But, but I thought elves were just stories!”
Sieg looked down, smiling sadly. “No, they’re… they’re real. They just… don’t mix with most people. I’m only here because his grace let me stay here and protects me. And, and Lord Ambrose and Lady Lucinda are also very kind.”
The boy sniffled, digesting this. “What happened to your hands? They’re all scarred up. And your nose is funny too.”
The half-elf shrank further into himself, but thankfully he was spared having to answer by the sound of a sharp whistle from behind him. Sieg around to see Seamus coming towards them with another hostler and a cart of the sort that was used to bring heavy supplies back and forth. Seamus waved, and with a small smile Sieg waved back.
“I reckon this should do us nicely,” the bookkeeper remarked. “Sieg I still need tae talk tae his grace about the horses, are yeh alright goin’ with the young man tae the physicians with the cart driver?”
“I can take him,” Sieg said with a nod. He’d been down to the physicians to check on the progression of his recovery from the state of semi-starvation he’d been in when he first arrived that he was more or less comfortable with the place now. He still didn’t like being poked and prodded much, but at least he was confident he could walk into the building without freezing in terror at the unfamiliarity.
“Master Sieg, Lord Dun, th-thank you,” the boy said fervently, and Sieg smiled.
“Just Sieg please, I’m not a master, I’m just… W-wait, Lord Dun? Did you…” he turned to Seamus, his eyes all but bulging out of his head. “You’re a noble?!”
“Well… well aye,” Seamus replied, looking confused. “I thought yeh already knew that.”
The half-elf felt every muscle in his body coil as tight as a wound spring, and his stomach lurched painfully. All this time he’d been talking to Seamus so casually, addressing him so informally, he hadn’t once knelt to him…
“Sieg, what’s the matter?” Seamus demanded.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Sieg stammered, bowing his head and squeezing his eyes shut. “I didn’t know, I didn’t realize, I’ve b-been so impolite.”
“Woah, woah, take it easy,” the bookkeeper said, putting a hand on Sieg’s shoulder. The half-elf flinched hard at the touch, and Seamus immediately withdrew his hand. “Sieg, really, if I cared about all o’ that I’d have said somethin’ long before now. Yeh didn’t know I was a noble- alright, a bit of a funny oversight but nae a big deal in the long run. My brother’s the lord, I’m just a younger son o’ a minor noble. I’m never goin’ tae come intae any power, I’m barely a noble at all.”
Sieg shook his head, his expression full of panic that was starting to make Roger a little frightened too. The half-elf swallowed hard. “I… but…”
“I have nae changed lad, just how yeh see me’s different,” Seamus said gently. “Please dinnae be like this, I dinnae want ye being scared o’ me. I like yeh, Sieg, yer a good lad ‘n a good friend.”
The half-elf was startled to hear Seamus call him a friend. He looked up to Lord Ambrose and trusted Lady Lucinda, but… a friend? With a noble? That was impossible, nobles didn’t befriend commoners, it just wasn’t done…
But Sieg liked Seamus too. He trusted him. The bookkeeper had always been patient, kind, supportive, easygoing… and yet he was a noble, and everything Sieg had ever been taught reinforced that there was an invisible wall between the nobility and everyone else. Maybe he wasn’t a slave anymore, and maybe these people said being half-elf wasn’t a reason to be ashamed, but to go this far?
“I… I need to take Roger to the physician,” he temporized. “I’m sorry L-Lord Dun.”
“Sieg…” Seamus said, unhappiness evident in his voice- the half-elf had always used the bookkeeper’s first name before. But Sieg only bowed, and turned his attention back to helping the stable boy.
He didn’t know how to handle this. He needed time to think.
* * * * *
Seamus sighed, rubbing his face as he climbed the last few flights of stairs up to Alain’s office. He wasn’t looking forward to this interview at all, especially given how dismal his mood already was after the conversation with Sieg down at the stables. When he arrived at the door, he gave it two short raps.
“Come in,” came the cool voice from inside, and Seamus opened the door. Seeing who his guest was, he gave a polite smile. “Ah, hello Master Dun; to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Can’t really say it’s a pleasure, yer grace,” Seamus replied apologetically as he sat in the chair opposite Alain’s desk. “Got a few items ye might want to know, ‘n thought I should also tell ye about a bit o’ a dustup down at the stables earlier.”
Alain set his paperwork aside, his expression was unreadable. “Go on.”
The bookkeeper sighed. “I was goin’ through the accounts fer the expenditures from the stables this month. The spendin’ fer hayseed is a fifth again higher than last month- apparently we’ve had tae buy more than usual. That, taken with the stomach upset we’ve been seeing for the past few weeks, has me thinkin’ the merchants might’ve decided tae skim us off the top by weighing the feedbags- probably with sand.”
As he spoke, he took the sheaf of paper where he’d copied the account tallies out of his jacket, and slid it across the desk to the grand duke. After he looked over the paper, Alain looked back up at Seamus. "I shall certainly arrange for an investigation into the matter as soon as supplies run low." Lowering his voice icely he added, "If it is true, the merchants will not fare well. I prefer my horses looked after properly."
The Stallion handed the paper back to Seamus, who tucked it back into his jacket. With a smirk Alain said, "Regardless, thank you for bringing this to my attention. Is there anything else you wish to report to me?"
Seamus shrugged. “Just this- there was a bit o’ an incident down at the stables this afternoon. One o’ the stableboys, Roger his name was, got kicked by a yearling while exercisin’ him in the paddock. He’s fine, but his arm was broke and he’s probably goin’ tae be on light duty fer the next few months, so someone’ll need tae be pickin’ up the slack. Mighta been worse, but Sieg was with me ‘n he grabbed him ‘n got ‘im out.”
The bookkeeper smiled crookedly. “I was surprised, I’ll admit that; never saw anyone move quite that fast, nor did I imagine Sieg o’ all people bein’ brave enough to jump into a pen with an excited yearling.”
Alain smiled. "I see. I am glad the stableboy is alright, though I imagine the others will not be keen to make up for his workload” With a knowing glint in his eye he remarked, "Seems there's a lot more depth to Sieg than most people suspect. Nevertheless, from the sound of it, it seems our ex-slave is making some progress."
The grand duke leaned forwards, "I must ask what he was doing in the stables, however. That isn't normally his job."
Seamus laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "That was my doin' yer grace. I wanted tae go down to the stables tae double-check the tallies I had so I could be absolutely certain the expenditures really were as high as all that. He was with me practicing his numbers ‘n seemed tae be in a glum mood, so I thought if I was headin' that way regardless I'd show him the Nobelesse tae impress him a bit and cheer him up. Sorry, was that out o' line?"
"Not at all, you were not tearing him away from his job and I suppose it could count as part of his lessons. I was simply curious," Alain smiled. "As it turns out, it is a good thing you took him, Seamus. I cannot fault you either way."
The bookkeeper glanced aside. "I... I dinnea know yer grace. While we were gettin’ ready tae take the boy tae the physicians, the kid called me 'Lord' ‘n Sieg... he didn't take it well. I guess he dinnea know I was nobleborn. I tried tae tell him I was a younger son o' a minor house ‘n barely a noble at all, but I think he's a bit nervous o' me now." Seamus shrugged helplessly. "I always assumed he knew- I mean he never called me Master like most do but I figured that was on account o' being a former slave."
Alain lowered his eyes. "I see...for a Courdonian slave, any noble, no matter how lowly, is intimidating." He smiled thinly, "You must never assume anything. He must have not guessed because of your accent and the way you do not act as a noble would, no offence, Master Dun. But you should be patient with him. I am afraid I cannot help you there, you must regain Sieg's trust on your own.” With a humorless smirk the Stallion added, "If he is scared of you, you can imagine how terrified he must be of me."
Seamus winced. “Yeah I… I see yer point there. I’ve certainly seen the scars on his face and hands, and the way he jumps at shadows. Yeh dinnae get to being like that by living a happy life. ‘Pit cursed Courdonians.” the bookkeeper sighed, “I just dinnae know, yer grace. He's a good guy. Sweet as ever yeh could imagine ‘n harmless as a baby rabbit. It just doesn't seem right, what they did tae him. What kind o’... what manner o’ monsters must the Courdonians be tae torture ‘n mutilate someone like him?”
Seamus shook his head. “I’m just mortal glad he managed tae hang on tae that compassion. Would’ve been easy tae get angry ‘n hard, goin’ through what he went through.”
Alain steepled his fingers, his expression unreadable. "The Courdonians are barbarians. They do not see sweetness, they only see what they can use and will not stop until they wring that use out, without regard for anything else."
He smiled, a knowing light in his eyes. "Sometimes, Master Dun, when you have suffered as much as he has, you feel like you have no choice but to be kind. Especially when it is in your nature, as it seems to be with him."
The bookkeeper smiled crookedly. “I’ll have tae take yer word for that. I don’t really know much o’ sufferin’. Makes me wonder why the man fixed on me in the first place. I just hope I havenae alienated him now.”
He shifted in the chair. “Any rate, that was all I had tae report. Is there anythin’ you needed from me while I’m here?”
"Because you showed him kindness, Master Dun," the grand duke waved a hand dismissively. "Either way, whether you have alienated him or not is up to him, and what you do about it is up to you. As for me, there's nothing I need from you at the moment. You're free to go." Alain turned back to the paperwork on his desk. "And thank you again for bringing the matter of the merchants to my attention."
“Aye, o’ course yer grace,” Seamus said instantly. He stood, bowing, and then let himself out.
* * * * *
It was two days after the incident at the stables, and Sieg was on his way up to Alain’s office. He generally didn’t have much to do with the Stallion patriarch- Alain still utterly terrified him- but apparently the grand duke was entertaining a visitor of some stature and had requested a wine service be brought up for the both of them. Sieg had been nearby when the order was received by the kitchens, so he’d been asked to present the refreshments.
He wasn’t looking forward to this- he preferred to avoid the grand duke whenever possible, and he could very clearly remember the last punishment he’d gotten in Courdon before arriving in this odd place. He’d had his hands lashed for stumbling and spilling a little wine on a visiting dignitary. Granted, Sieg had stumbled because the dignitary was imbibing a little too much of the wine and had walked into him, but the slave had still been the one punished for it.
Yet he was going anyway. There, just ahead, was the door to Alain’s office. Knowing that there would be awkward questions if he knelt to the grand duke in front of a stranger- and that it would be impossible to kneel while holding a tray anyway- Sieg reached into his shirt collar and found the pouch of herbs on a chord that the physicians had sent to Lady Lucinda for him. Mint leaves, eucalyptus leaves, and sap from the wood of a camphor laurel came together to produce a rather strong scent that did decently well to keep his airway open, though only for a little while at a time.
He opened the lip of the pouch and crushed the herbs inside together until the aromatic scents rose up from under his clothes and into his nose and mouth. Fixing his face in an emotionless mask, Sieg knocked on the door, and upon being invited inside, entered the room.
“Refreshments for you and your guest, your grace,” he said politely. He’d finally managed to shake the habit of trying to call Alain “master,” but in spite of the herbal vapor his throat felt uncomfortably tight and his voice emerged a little hoarsely. The same face, the same voice, even the same cool, impassive expression on his face most of the time…
He set down the tray on Alain’s desk and began pouring the wine from the bottle into two glasses. As he did so, however, he heard a sharp cry of shock.
“Great Woo, what happened to your hands, man?” asked Alain’s visitor, his eyes wide and his face twisted with horror and sympathy. Sieg couldn’t help it- he winced, averting his eyes. Again with this question, always with this question. He didn’t want to think about how his hands had been mutilated, why did everyone always have to bring it up?
“Sieg,” Alain said unexpectedly, and the half-elf immediately turned towards him, eyes lowered submissively. When had he started trembling?
“Your grace?”
“You may go, Sieg,” the Stallion said. “I’m sure you’ve tasks to attend to.”
Sieg blinked, actually lifting his eyes a little to look at the grand duke’s face. Was that reassurance in his voice? It was faint, barely discernible, but the half-elf had been working in Alain’s direct service for ten years and had learned to read his face and voice.
Sieg said nothing, he simply bowed his head and left the room. He lingered for just a moment outside the doorway, and he could hear soft voices from inside, but he didn’t stay to try and figure out what they were saying. Once he was certain the coast was clear, he bolted down the hall towards the servant's quarters.
It was too much. He was overwhelmed with conflicting impulses, and he didn’t know how to handle them. Back in Courdon he would be expected to do his tasks quietly, to exist without questioning that existence, obey without question. He was not a man, he was not even an animal, he was an object to be used and discarded when he was no longer useful. Any defiance or deviation from that was punished painfully, until he didn’t want to act or think on his own because his mind associated free thought with pain and misery. His scars were nothing there, just the signs of owner exercising his right to do what he wished with his property.
But here in Kyth he was not only encouraged to think for himself, he was often forced to. In situations where a decision had to be made regarding his own future, he was not told to do things but asked what he wanted. He no longer had to fear the pain of a punishment for refusing to obey, and his scars were something to regard with horror and sympathy. Without the fear of punishment, the impassive mask of a thoughtless, emotionless automaton that he wore to protect himself in Courdon was crumbling to reveal the gnarled mess of a creature that resembled nothing human underneath.
He wanted to be happy here. He didn’t want to be disappointed, which he would inevitably be if he permitted himself to be happy.
He wanted to trust these people. He wanted to be safe, and his entire life was witness to the fact that trust was a luxury he could not afford.
He wanted, with an almost physical ache, to accept the friendship that Seamus and Lucinda and the other servants were offering. He wanted to protect them from the monster that he really was, the monster who had killed his own father, the only person to show him any affection.
He wanted to test his boundaries, to explore this strange new thing called freedom. He wanted the security of knowing his place in the world, and knowing exactly where the boundaries where so he wouldn’t misstep.
He didn’t know who he was. He’d never had the chance to figure that out. Now he was terrified of the answer, terrified to reach into his soul past a lifetime of painful conditioning and repression to that withered sprig of selfhood his masters and he had both tried in vain to destroy. But it was there, and will he or not it was starting to grow. And that was a terrifying thought.
A crowd, a touch, a simple question about his scars… what would set him off next? When would he stop falling apart over inane things that most people took for granted? Would he ever? He hadn’t even reached the servants quarters when he stumbled to a halt, trembling too hard to keep running and gasping for air as sweat rolled down his face.
“Sieg?”
The half-elf spun around, terrified he was about to get a lecture for running in the halls, but instead he saw the concerned face of Seamus looking at him from around the corner of a connecting hallway.
“Sieg, are yeh alright?” he asked, coming around and walking towards the ex-slave. “Yeh were runnin’ as if the ‘Pit himself was after yeh, what’s wrong?”
“S-Seamus… I m-mean Lord Du-”
“Nah, please Sieg, just Seamus,” he interrupted. “Yeh’ve called me that this long, there’s nae reason tae change now.”
Sieg clenched his teeth, swallowing hard. There it was again. That tantalizingly sincere overture of friendship. From a noble. He just… what should he…
“I’m… I… I w-want to be n-normal!” Sieg finally gasped. “I don’t w-want to b-be like this, afraid of everything all the t-time and, and falling apart over stupid things. I’m t-tired of people gawking at my scars and I just, I just-”
“Hey, hey, shhh,” Seamus interrupted, putting an arm around Sieg’s shoulder. “Calm down, it’s alright.”
The half-elf tried to throttle down the surge of frustration and self-loathing, but it wasn’t working. Seamus was doing the wrong thing, he was being sympathetic and comforting. He was supposed to smack the rebellious slave, tell him to get a hold of himself, and punish him further if he could not. Instead everything about his demeanor invited the half-elf to break down further, but Sieg couldn’t, he was supposed to be working, he’d be punished…
“Wh-what’s wrong with me?” he sobbed, quivering in Seamus’ grip. “Why do I k-keep doing this, I never u-used to, used to lose control like this, I, I-”
“Nothin’s wrong with yeh,” Seamus insisted. “Yer actin’ like anyone else would in the same place. All yer life yeh’ve been hurt, but yeh couldnae do anything about it ‘n if yeh showed how much yeh hurt it’d only make the hurt worse. It’s like a wound, ey? If yeh ignore the pain and keep walkin’ on it, it gets infected. It’s a lot harder to treat an infected wound then one yeh just got, ‘n it hurts like the ‘Pit. Wounds to yer spirit are nae different than wounds to your body.”
He pushed Sieg away and gently put a finger under the half-elf’s chin so that Sieg was forced to meet his eyes. “I’m nae one much for medicine things, numbers are more my speed, but I reckon yer doin’ pretty good all things considered.”
The half-elf shook his head. “I’m… I’m just so confused. I thought I knew what I was, but now I don’t know anymore.”
“Aye, that’s why I like numbers,” Seamus said with a crooked smile. “The whole world can turn upside down ‘n two plus two will still be…”
Realizing he was being cued, Sieg hurriedly looked down at his hands, calculating. “F-four?”
“Yer gettin’ quicker at that,” the bookkeeper remarked cheerfully. “Maybe soon yeh’ll nae need tae count on yer fingers to find the sum.”
The half elf shook his head, a small smile on his face. “I don’t think so, I’m not very good.”
“Nah, it’s like yer singin’, eh? Takes practice. Oh!” Seamus brightened visibly. “I know! Some folks have little jingles tae help them learn how to add numbers. Make a song out o’ it, tae help them remember. Yeh like singin’, yeh think if we made up some arthimetic songs it might help?”
Sieg huffed softly, the same sound he’d inadvertently made the night he went out to the bar with the other servants. “Maybe. It’s worth a try.”
“Alright then; I’ll see what I can come up with, and teach them tae yeh when yer off work for the day. Deal?”
“Deal,” the half-elf agreed.
“Good! I reckon we’d both better get back tae work, but do nae forget to come by later!”
Sieg nodded, and the two of them went their separate ways. It wasn’t until almost an hour later that Sieg realized he’d completely forgotten to be upset about his scars.
* * * * *
Another night on the town, another group of drunk Stallion servants and one sober ex-slave. Giles was slumped between Sieg and Blaise, completely unconscious as drool slid down his chin. Blaise wasn’t in terribly great shape either, but at least he was conscious. At a little under five feet tall with a physique that even two months on still resembled an emaciated teenager, Sieg probably would not have been able to carry Giles on his own so even drunken help was better than no help at all.
Eventually they were able to haul him back to the castle, through the halls and into his room in the servant’s quarters. With a patient sigh, Sieg helped Blaise lay him down on his bed, before wishing the drunken gardener goodnight.
As he headed down the hallway to his own room, Sieg found himself shivering a little. It was well into September, and he was noticing a very sharp nip in the air at night unlike anything he was familiar with in Courdon. Leaves were just starting to turn in the trees, yet another phenominon that was strange to Sieg. He looked forward to being able to curl up under the blankets on his bed and-
The half-elf was brought up short by this; to take for granted that he had a bed to sleep on, and blankets to keep warm… He smiled a little, ruefully. Sieg almost felt like he was becoming spoiled.
He finally reached the door to his room. The room set aside for him in the servant’s quarters was a lot smaller than the guest room he’d stayed in when he first landed in Bern, with only a one-man bed, a dresser, a small armchair, and a washbasin to clean his face, but he didn’t mind. It was a room he had to himself, with a door he could lock to shut out the rest of the world if he needed space. Only a few people besides himself were supposed to have a key to get in.
Which made it rather a surprise when he opened the door to find that there was a box sitting on his bed.
“Wha…” He walked up to the box, confused. It wasn’t his, who’d left it there? He lit a candle on his dresser, then gently pulling back the lid of the mysterious package. He reached into the box and pulled out two pairs of leather gloves. One of a lighter material, and the other padded on the inside with lambswool.
Instinctively Sieg glanced at his hands, still as pocked with scars as ever. These… they couldn’t be… these were very well made gloves, he could tell that just by looking at them. The leather was good quality, the seams were tight, and the wool inside the winter gloves was soft and plush. But when he hesitantly pulled one of the summer weight gloves on, he found that it fit over his hand as comfortable as if it was an extension of his skin. It was neither too loose, nor too tight.
He’d never thought to buy gloves for himself to cover his hands. They didn’t seem to be part of the normal servant’s uniform, for one thing, and they weren’t really a thing in Courdon. In fact he’d been rather surprised when he noticed Alain wearing gloves in this world, because his Courdonian master had never-
Wait.
Alain’s gloves- these looked almost exactly the same as Alain’s gloves. Not quite the same quality, but definitely the same basic design. And just the other day Alain had been witness to the sort of grief that Sieg got over the scars on his hands. He… could he possibly have… Could Alain, the selfsame man who’d tortured and terrified him for ten years, poured acid on his arm just to make a point…
Could he have given Sieg a gift?
It flew in the face of everything he knew about the man he’d called his master for so long, and yet… Who else with access to his room knew about his frustrations over his scars, and was likely to go to the exact same glove maker as his grace?
Sieg was trembling again, but not with cold. He set the winter weight gloves gently in his dresser and pulled the other summer weight one onto his hand. Like it’s mate it fit perfectly- and with them both on, there was no trace of the horrific scars that marred his fingers. He still had his broken nose, and the scars on his chin and under his eye but… this helped. It helped a very great deal.
“Th-thank you… your grace.” Kindred Spirits - Countryswap Crossover AU Collabed with Celestial
It was late September in the Bernian capital of Destrier- in a few days it would be October. Autumn was in full swing, and the days were getting perceptibly chillier. For an ex-slave from Courdon, even this early in the seasonal shift it was getting distinctly uncomfortable to be outside for any significant stretch of time. He tried not to complain about it- a habit from his slavery, when he had been taught painfully that he was to obey without question- but it must have shown in his demeanor.
Sieg had gone out into the city drinking before with a group of the other servants- though he didn’t do any drinking himself because alcohol made him into someone he didn’t particularly like. The exact group varied, but it usually at least consisted of the servants Vince, Lucian and Giles, the gardener Blaise, and one of the kennel workers named Alan. Those five were a pretty tight group, and the fact that they were making an effort to include Sieg in that group was gratifying if a little confusing, since he couldn’t begin to fathom why anyone would seek him out if they were looking for a good time. He knew full well that between his chronic depression and his lack of understanding about most aspects of the real world, he could be a bit of a buzzkill.
That made it all the more confusing when Allan, the kennel worker, asked Sieg to talk to him in the gardens alone.
“Is something wrong?” he immediately asked upon catching sight of the blonde haired Bernian sitting on a bench under one of the trees that had gone firey with the colors of autumn. Alan shook his head with a patient eyeroll.
“Yeh always assume that. No, nothing’s wrong. Actually I might have something nice to offer, pending a few questions.”
Baffled by this remark, Sieg sat down next to Allan. “Alright, wh-what do you need to ask?”
The man shifted a bit. “Sieg, how do yeh feel about dogs?”
“I uh…” Sieg pondered this for a moment, his expression a bit lost. “I don’t really have any strong feelings about them. I never had much to do with dogs in… in C-Courdon. I mean I know the slave-hunters had dogs who were trained to sniff out escapees, my father told me about them but that’s really it.”
Allan’s mouth twisted downwards at the corner. “Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything Courdon hasn’t given yeh a bad association for. Dogs have other purposes too. The ones here in the kennels are used to hunt game. Deer and pheasants and the like. And sometimes people will keep dogs around just for the company.”
“Really?” Sieg asked in surprise, and Allan nodded.
“The reason we can train them for hunting and tracking and such is because dogs really like people. Horses have to be trained specially to see a human as part of the herd, but dogs consider people part of their pack instinctively. And unlike people, dogs don’t judge yeh. If yeh get a dog to love and trust yeh then yeh’ve got a friend for life, doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done in the past.”
The half-elf smiled a little at that thought, though he wasn’t sure if he believed it. A creature that loved people unconditionally? For a slave who’d grown up in the hateful environment of Courdon it seemed like a fantasy for little children.
“The reason I bring this up,” Allan went on, “is because back in August we had a female beagle- ah, that’s a kind of dog- throw some puppies that were clearly not all beagle. We think she was frollicking with one of the greyhounds, since the pups have really long legs like that kind of dog. Now we have different kinds of dogs because they all have special traits that make them good at one particular thing. The mixed babies are cute, and sweet as ever yeh could wish, but they don’t have the right traits to be hunting dogs. So we’ve been looking to find some folks to take care of them.”
He glanced sideways at Sieg, who stared back without comprehension for a solid minute. Then realization hit. “M-me? But, but I can’t, I don’t know anything about dogs, and I live in the castle, his grace would never allow-”
“Actually, his grace has already said it’s alright, if you want to,” Allan interrupted. “As long as you keep it in the servants quarters and the private parts of the castle- and don’t bring it into any of the noble’s rooms without permission. You’d also have to teach it to behave and stay quiet, but I can help teach you how to do that when I’m off duty.”
Sieg frowned. “You’ve been discussing this for a while.”
Allan winced. “Yes, but Sieg, remember that it’s your choice. If you don’t want to do this you don’t have to. I just… I think you’d be happy about it if you gave it a try. Dogs are great company, and they can tell when you’re upset and will try to make you feel better. Just meet the puppies maybe? You don’t have to decide right away.”
The ex-slave looked doubtful still, but he nodded. If the Grand Duke was behind this plan, he didn’t really see how he could object. With resignation, he agreed to meet the puppies.
Sieg followed Allan into the building the served as the castle’s dog kennels. He’d not been down here much, except to deliver messages once or twice, but he was always rather bowled over by the sheer amount of noise that emanated from inside. The barking was loud, and he was surprised it didn’t carry further.
“It’s the hounds,” Allan said, noticing Sieg’s expression. “They get like that when they smell someone they don’t recognize. They’ll calm back down pretty quick once they see you’re not a threat.”
The half-elf swallowed hard. He couldn’t help remembering the stories he’d heard of slave-hunting dogs that would mercilessly charge and savage an escapee to incapacitate them. As Allan led him past rows of dogs in small enclosures, he shivered a bit at the way the barked at him, some rearing up on their hind legs to lean forwards against the door of the cage.
“Easy Sieg, they’re just curious,” Allan said, noticing the former slave’s mounting terror. “If I were to let ‘em out they might jump at yeh, but just to give yeh a good sniff. They won’t hurt yeh.”
Sieg nodded, but he wasn’t entirely convinced. Finally they reached a door at the back of the building, which Allan opened to reveal a fenced in outdoor run.
“We let the dogs out in threes and fours in this yard to exercise,” he explained. “They get stir-crazy if yeh don’t give them a chance to run around a bit. Go on out and sit down in the grass wherever yeh like. I’ll let the little ones out into the run with yeh and you can get acquainted without all the others making a racket. They’re young and excitable so they might try to jump at yeh, but don’t worry, they’re not attacking you. Just being playful.”
Sieg still wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. Being jumped on wasn’t an idea that especially appealed to him. Still, he obediently walked out into the run, sitting down close to the fence and leaning against it. Allan vanished back into the kennel building. After a few moments, a small trapdoor on the side of the building slid open, and three long-legged puppies bowled out into the yard. As Allan had predicted, they spotted Sieg almost immediately and made a beeline for him- two of them anyway, the third hung back and approached more slowly.
It was every bit as overwhelming as he’d feared it would be. The two outgoing puppies, both black brown and white tri-colors, were all over him, licking his face and bumping against his chin and pawing at his chest. The half-elf’s shoulders hitched up defensively and he winced, leaning his face away and putting up his hands to try and block them. He was becoming thoroughly overstimulated by the exuberance of the small animals.
“Hey, hey, give him some space you little demons,” Allan called to them affectionately. He took a small ball out of his sleeve and gave it a toss across the run, sending the two energetic pups rocketing after it. “Sorry, I probably should have let them run off the worst of their energy before introducing you.”
“N-no, it’s fine,” Sieg said, watching the two pups promptly forget about the ball halfway to it and start scuffling with each other. Remembering the third, he looked around for a bit before finally spotting it- it was milling around near the trapdoor still, tail tucked between its legs as it cast an uncertain glance Sieg’s way. Unlike the other two it wasn’t tri-color, just white and tan, and it seemed smaller and skinnier then its siblings.
Following his gaze, Allan sighed. “Ah, yes, that one’s the runt. Most litters have one; a pup that’s smaller and weaker than the others and can’t compete for Mama’s milk. They tend to be a little bit bullied by the other pups and can be kinda shy. He’s actually the only male pup from the litter- the others were all girls. There were four at first, but one of them has already been adopted.”
Sieg turned his attention back to the two females, who were now chasing each other around the run. Thinking back to his tiny room in the servant’s quarters, he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to provide such… energetic creatures with the sort of space they’d need. If they ran around like that in his room they’d almost certainly break something. And he really hadn’t enjoyed that jump-and-lick nonsense.
His thoughts were interrupted when he felt something touch his fingers. He pulled away instinctively before realizing that it was just the shy puppy, having finally worked up the courage to approach and sniff his gloved hand. The little male jerked backwards, ears pressed against his head and body held low to the ground. He looked up at Sieg, the tail that was still firmly lodged between his legs wagging.
Sieg knew nothing about dogs, but he knew everything there was to know about body language- a slave lived and died by their ability to read the emotions in every little gesture of their superiors, and to affect the right sort of posture in response to keep their masters placated. This dog’s entire demeanor screamed of fearful submission; he was saying without words “I’m small and weak and harmless, and you are big and strong. You’re in charge here. Please, please don’t hurt me.”
Of course he recognized those unspoken signals; hadn’t he used the same ones his entire life to show subservience to his masters? But to see another creature acting like that towards him, terrified and silently begging not to be hurt, made the half-elf’s heart twist.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly, using the gentle, soothing voice he’d often employed when helping other slaves after they’d been hurt. He didn’t look directly at the puppy, instead looking slightly to one side- he knew from experience that eye contact was a challenge, a threatening gesture. He tried putting out his hand again, but the puppy backed further away.
“Don’t reach,” Allan advised. “Let him come to yeh. Take off one of your gloves so he can smell yer hand. Dogs learn about people by smell.”
With a wince- ever since he’d gotten the gloves he’d refused to take them off for anything except bathing and eating foods that he had to eat with his hands- he exposed one mangled, scarred appendage and held it out for the dog’s inspection. The little male reached out his neck towards Sieg’s hand, wary at first, but eventually he walked a little closer, then closer still, then Sieg could feel a cold, wet nose brushing his fingers. Apparently satisfied with his inspection, the puppy gently gave Sieg’s hand a few soft licks.
“Now you can try to pet him,” Allan said.
“Pet him?” Sieg asked, baffled. The kennel man chuckled.
“Stroke his head and back. They like it; it feels nice to ‘em.”
Oh. That made sense- elves had a similar thing. Their backs were very touch sensitive, and rubbing them was extremely relaxing and pleasant. Hesitantly, trying to move slowly so he didn’t spook the dog again, Sieg moved his hand towards the top of the dog’s head and started to stroke it. The puppy leaned into his touch, tail wagging again- and Sieg realized that this time his tail wasn’t clenched between his legs.
To his surprise, the puppy suddenly flopped down on his side, rolling over so that his legs were held in the air and his stomach was exposed. Panicked, he turned to Allan. “Did I hurt him?”
The Bernian laughed. “Nah, not at all. He wants yeh to rub his belly.”
“I… oh!” Sieg did so, and the little creature wiggled contentedly under his touch. Allan suddenly smirked.
“Try giving his belly a scratch, close to where the leg connects.”
The half-elf did so, and to his surprise the dog started to kick his leg rhythmically with the scratching. When Sieg stopped the leg stopped moving, and when he started again the leg kicked again. It was such a funny image that he found himself voicing the soft huffing noise that passed him for a laugh.
It seemed that the more energetic puppies had noticed the attention their brother was getting, however, because they suddenly waddled over. They pushed the shy puppy out of the way, attacking Sieg with their exuberant affections again. He winced, leaning away, and Allan sighed.
“I think you two need to go back inside,” he said firmly, scooping them up. “I’ll be right back, Sieg.”
As Allan vanished into the kennel building, Sieg looked around for the male puppy again. At first he couldn’t find it anywhere, but he realized that he could feel something warm against his back and turned to see that the pup was hiding between him and the fence. He smiled gently.
“It’s hard, huh? Being brave, doing things. It’s easier to hide and do what you’re told. Then you don’t get hurt or shoved around.” The former slave sighed. “Sometimes I wish I’d had someone to hide behind. But if I did, they would just have gotten hurt too, like Papa was. It’s better that it was me. I’m just a half-elf, I don’t matter.”
Sieg liked the feel of the puppy against his back- the little guy was very warm, which was nice in the chill of the Bernian autumn. He leaned back against the fence again, making himself into a sort of tent over the little dog. “I like it here. I really do. But everything’s so confusing, and nothing is like I’m used to it being. And I don’t really have the words to explain that to anybody. If I tried to tell them what I’m used to in Courdon, they’d just be horrified, or tell me things aren’t like that anymore. They don’t… they don’t understand, and they don’t try to. And I don’t want them to either, because it’s horrible and they don’t deserve that, but I…”
He laughed suddenly- a real laugh, out loud, though no one but the dog was around to hear it. “I’m talking to a dog. You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?”
The pup poked his head out of the crevice where he’d hidden himself, looking up at Sieg with a soft whine. Then, to his surprise, the little guy crawled out of his hiding place and up into the half-elf’s lap. He curled up there, wagging his tail and looking up at Sieg imploringly, and Sieg couldn’t help but smile. He started to pet the dog again, and by the time Allan returned the pup had fallen asleep.
“So I suppose yeh’ve made your pick then?” the Bernian asked, amused. Sieg smiled sheepishly.
“I still don’t really know how to take care of a dog, though. What do they eat? How do I keep him warm in the winter? Where would he stay while I’m working, my room is so small-”
“Woah, woah, easy,” Allan laughed. “I’ll tell yeh everything yeh need to know, I promise. And as for while you’re workin’… well I can probably still let the little guy stay here in the kennels during the day, to keep him out of trouble. Just as long as you’re the one who actually feeds him and what have you. But the question is still there- do you want him?”
Sieg looked down at the little puppy that was curled up in lap. It was so shy and skittish, he could easily see other people not having the patience to deal with it. But he understood being afraid, and just like when other slaves were hurt back in Courdon, just like when the stableboy had been kicked by a horse a few weeks ago, Sieg felt the overwhelming desire to do something. To help, to make things better, even just a little bit.
“I’m going to need some help getting the hang of this but… alright, yes. I’ll take care of him.”
* * * * *
Sieg’s daily routine changed rather abruptly with the addition of the puppy to his life. It was fortunate there was a door in the servant’s quarters of the castle that led directly outside, because otherwise it would have been extremely difficult for the half-elf to accommodate the pups frequent trips to relieve himself.
Prior to adopting the little guy he’d also not had much use for the payment he earned from his work. He was fed and sheltered up at the castle, and while he understood that these expenses came out of his payment- meaning he made less than someone who lived in the city would- he’d still managed to accumulate a sizable amount of money that he was only really spending when he went into town with the other servants, and then he was only spending it on a mug or two of small beer. Now though, he found himself having to make regular trips to pick up meat scraps, marrow bones, and the various other small leftovers that served the pup for food.
He also had to set aside a decent portion of his day to training the puppy, something that didn’t at all come easy for Sieg. As Allan frequently told him, he needed to be assertive and confident when giving commands, something he had no experience with and was not the least bit comfortable doing. But he really had no choice. When Allan had showed him how to collar and leash the pup so that he wouldn't wander off, Sieg had been forcefully reminded of the painful conditioning he’d endured with a noose as a child- conditioning he still suffered under, that made it impossible for him to breathe if he didn’t kneel before most nobles. Only Ambrose, who he’d worked for years to desensitize himself to, and Seamus, who he hadn’t realized was a noble until he’d already known him for over a month, didn’t set him off.
Allan tried to explain that it was for the dog’s own good, and it wouldn’t hurt as long as the pup didn’t yank on the lead, but Sieg still flatly refused to use the leash or collar. It was the first time since his arrival in Bern that he’d really, insistently refused to do something, and so Allan was inclined to let the half-elf have his way to encourage him to be more assertive rather than overriding his first real overture of individuality, but…
“If yeh can’t use the lead with him, yer gonna have to teach him to walk at heel,” he said with a sigh. “To stay beside your when yer walking around, at all times, and not wander off. It’s not impossible but it’s hard. Are you really sure you want to do this?”
“I… Allan when I look at the rope, I can’t breathe,” Sieg said softly. “I’m used to hard work, I can handle hard work, but I don’t want to feel like I’m strangling him whenever I take him out of my room.”
“Alright, if you’re sure,” Allan said. “But for the training to really work, you’re going to have to pick a name for him. He needs to know for sure when you’re talking to him or trying to get his attention, so a name gives him a sound that he recognizes means him every time you make it.”
Sieg nodded, his mouth tightening a little. That was something he’d been rather indecisive about. He felt like he needed to give the puppy just the right name, but he wasn’t really sure what that was. Something simple, but with meaning.”
But in spite of the difficulties of his newfound responsibility, Sieg found that the perks definitely outweighed the frustrations. The dog was shy and skittish yes, but he warmed up to Sieg surprisingly quickly and proved to be every bit as affectionate as his sisters- but a lot calmer and more reserved about it. Instead of jumping on Sieg, he would roll over on his back, nuzzle the half-elf’s hand to solicit petting, and wag his tail so hard it seemed about to fall off.
By the end of the second week after he’d adopted the pup, he’d given up feeling silly talking to his new roomate- no, the dog couldn’t understand what he was saying, but the way the little guy looked at him when he spoke gave at least the semblance of an attentive audience. And no matter what he said, what he admitted, the dog still curled up in his lap when he was practicing his writing, got excited to see him when he was finished working for the day, and slept next to his feet. It was nice.
There were other benefits too. As he’d noticed that first day in the run, the dog was very warm, like a miniature oven at times. As September melted into October and the temperatures continued to plummet, the former slave found himself holding the dog close to his chest without shame just for the sake of that warmth, something his new friend seemed to revel in.
It was that particular trait that finally earned the dog his name- Aiden. Sieg’s friend, the Stallion bookkeeper Seamus, had been firing off a stream of suggestions one afternoon, and mentioned that “Aiden” was a word in the old Bernian language for “little flame.” Certainly apt, and if it continued to get colder Sieg had a feeling he’d need every bit of warmth Aiden had to offer.
But there was one aspect to having Aiden around Sieg had not at all anticipated; he found that, when he walked around the gardens or the city with a dog in tow, he got a lot more attention from people. And as time passed and he was no longer being bullied and cowed by his siblings, Aiden started to come out of his shell and not only appreciate this attention, but actually solicit it. Being forced into social interactions was not something Sieg would have thought having a dog would bring about! At first he was inclined to panic when this happened, but he realized that, with these conversations staring off on the topic of a cute puppy rather than say, his scars, they went a lot more smoothly. Not that this stopped Sieg from panicking whenever it happened.
It was midway into October, and Sieg was out in the gardens trying again to work with Aiden on staying at heel. He’d managed simpler commands like sit, lie down, stay, come, and “drop it” but hadn’t quite gotten the puppy to the point where he could trust him not to wander off. He had finally decided to put a halt to the training and was wrestling with the dog with a stick when Aiden’s ears suddenly twitched, and he looked around towards the castle. Before Sieg could recapture the pup’s attention, he suddenly darted off.
“Aiden! Wait!” Sieg lurched to his feet, starting after the dog. When he saw what had grabbed Aiden’s attention, however, his heart leapt into his throat and he fell instinctively to one knee. The little dog was bowing and wagging his tail at Alain.
“Your grace! Y-your grace, I’m sorry, I’ve been trying to- Aiden no, sit!”
The little dog glanced around at Sieg then obediently plopped his bottom down on the ground. With a sigh of relief the half-elf fished a small scrap of meat out of his pouch and gave it to the dog. He glanced up at Alain, but was surprised to see that the grand duke didn’t seem bothered- in fact he was smiling a little, and seemed to have been holding out a hand for Aiden to smell before Sieg intervened.
When the half-elf apologized, Alain waved a hand dismissively. "It's quite alright, no harm done. So, this is one of the mixed dogs from the kennels? I see you're making some progress in training him."
"A-ah, yes your grace," Sieg replied, looking down with a flush crawling across the bridge of his nose. "I've b-been doing my best. They gave me a leash at the kennels but I..."
He put a hand to his neck. "I don't like it. B-bad memories. So I've been trying to teach him h-how to, to stay with me without one."
The grand duke’s eyes hardened at those words, making Sieg shudder just a little, though the anger didn’t seem to be directed at the half-elf. "No, of course you wouldn't.” The anger passed then, and he smiled. "But clearly, it doesn't always work, otherwise we would not be having this conversation."
Sieg glanced down at the dog, who had rolled over on his back and was waving his paws in the air at Alain imploringly. The half-elf sighed. "N-no, not always. Allan says I need to be more assertive if I want him to listen to me. I've been doing my best, I swear, it's just not always easy... assertive was the last thing I was allowed to be in Courdon, j-just looking someone above my station in the eye was grounds for p-punishment."
Alain bent down, indulgently scratching the puppy’s belly. He stood again shortly, however, and turned back to Sieg. "Nobody said it had to be easy. It takes practice, no matter who you are. But everyone has to start somewhere eventually.” The Stallion smirked. "Thankfully a puppy is not above your station."
Sieg blinked up at Alain, his expression confused. Was that a joke? It sounded like one, and the Stallion seemed amused, but for Alain to be joking with him...
The half-elf looked down at his gloved hands, remembering how the gloves had been left in his room anonymously. Glancing up at Alain's gloves, he saw again the striking similarity in the style between them.
"No," he said finally. "The more energetic puppies were... overwhelming, but it's hard to be intimidated by Aiden. And ah, th-thank you for giving permission for me to keep him. It's a challenge but, but he's good company."
As the half-elf’s eyes flickered downwards, Alain smiled again, though the expression was gone when Sieg looked back up. "It's no trouble, and a challenge like this is what you need. Besides, he suits you, Sieg."
"A half-breed dog for a half-breed man," Sieg remarked softly, though when he looked at Aiden again there was obvious affection in his eyes despite the self-depreciation in the remark. Catching his glance, Aiden rolled back over and walked up to Sieg, smiling a wide puppy smile, and shoved his head into the half-elf's chest. Sieg's posture, tensed from Alain's presence, relaxed a bit and he gently rubbed the side of Aiden's face just under his ear.
"The dog clearly doesn't mind," Alain remarked, his eyes glinting. Before Sieg had time to wonder exactly what he meant by that- Aiden didn’t mind being half-breed, or didn't’ mind Sieg being half breed?- he nodded. "I best leave you to training him. I have places to be later and you won't get far with me standing over you."
Sieg bowed his head as the Stallion turned away. Only when he could no longer hear Alain’s footsteps on the stone pathway did he lift his head to look at Aiden.
“You have no idea what he does to me,” he informed the dog softly. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
Aiden licked the underside of Sieg’s chin, and the half-elf sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know you just wanted to make friends. I wish I could be as brave as you are sometimes. To think when I picked you up you were actually so shy you hid behind me from your own sisters.”
He hesitated for a moment, then put a hand on the ground. “Aiden, lie down.”
The dog obeyed, and Sieg felt his spirits lift a fraction. He could do this. He could do this. And if Aiden could get over his shyness so quickly, maybe… maybe eventually, with time, the half-elf could as well.
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Post by Shinko on Aug 26, 2014 21:04:16 GMT -5
What Keeps Us Warm - Countryswap Crossover AU Collabed with Kristykimmy
It was late November in the Bernian capital of Destrier, and the half-elf servant named Sieg was freezing.
Having been born a slave in the desert nation of Courdon, he’d never really experienced a true winter such as those that were the norm in the mountainous Bern. He had special padding inside of his uniform for extra insulation, he’d purchased several very thick blankets to add to his bed, and he had the warmth of his four month old puppy Aiden against his back, and he was still freezing. He’d occasionally caught sight of a light dusting of white, like powdered sugar, on the gardens outside- something the other servants explained was called snow. Like rain, only frozen. If winters here were cold enough to freeze the rain, Sieg was sorely tempted to hibernate throughout the season.
But he couldn’t. He had Aiden to see to, and cold or not the puppy needed to go out first thing every morning to relieve himself. So, bundled in several layers and still shivering, Sieg prepared this morning as every morning to let his companion outside. What greeted him when he opened the door was nothing like he’d been expecting.
Snow- but this time, not just a light dusting that would melt in a few hours. Everything, absolutely everything that wasn’t a vertical surface, was covered in white. When Aiden, oblivious to the unusualness of this, trotted cheerfully out to do his business, he yelped and sank a full two inches into the ice. Sieg hurriedly scooped the dog up out of the snow, cradling him close to his chest. What now?
* * * * *
The other servants had assured Sieg that walking in the snow wouldn’t hurt Aiden, so he’d eventually relented and let the dog go out to do what he needed to do. Sure enough the puppy came back with no obvious ill effects, save a bit of shivering, and Sieg dropped him off at the kennels so he could get to work. But throughout the day he kept casting confused, terrified glances out the window at the snow, as if afraid it would somehow rear up and attack him. It was everywhere, how could the others be so dismissive of it? Was this really normal?
Eventually he finished with his work for the day, and went back down to the kennel to pick up Aiden again. This was one of the days he’d arranged to practice singing with Lady Lucinda, the granddaughter of the castle’s patriarch Grand Duke Alain. Sieg liked Lucinda, and she seemed to like him as well. She’d been very patient with him in his first few weeks at the castle, and it was with her help he’d discovered a love of music and taken up the hobby. She also liked Aiden, having granted Sieg permission to bring the dog with him to her quarters when they met to practice music.
So with a little mutt at his feet- he’d finally taught Aiden to walk at heel after weeks of effort- he knocked on her door and called with chattering teeth, “L-Lady Luc-c-cinda? It’s me.”
Lucinda rose from the sofa she was sitting on and opened the door when she heard Sieg call out to her from behind it.
“Sieg, come in!” she said, smiling at him and waving him into the room. He walked in, habitually crushing a small pouch of medicinal plants he kept around his neck to keep his throat open around nobles.
Lucinda then bent down and scooped up Aiden, cuddling her face against his and crooning at him. “Look at you, Aiden. Sieg's doing such a good job raising you.”
She noticed the way Seig's teeth were chattering and said, “Sieg, please, go sit by the fire if you're cold. I suppose you've seen the snow? Our first real snowfall of the year; those dusting really do not count, after all.”
Aiden affectionately licked Lucinda's nose as she cuddled him, making Sieg smile despite a faint flush that spread across his cheeks at her praise for his care of the dog. He nodded vigorously when Lucinda invited him to sit by the fire, doing so with a shiver.
"It n-never gets close to this cold in C-Courdon," he explained. "The climate is t-too... I think Seamus c-called it 'arid'? But I'm trying t-to adjust."
He rubbed his face, trying to warm his cheeks with the friction. "H-how long will the snow stay on the ground? When it was just a little it was gone in a few hours b-but there's so m-much out there right now. How do people get through it to go anywhere?"
Lucinda set Aiden on the floor and glanced out the window at the falling snow. “Most of the winter and into the spring,” she replied. “Once the real snow begins to fall, it usually stays until it warms enough to melt it. Occasionally we get days that are warm enough to melt off a little of it, but it is usually too cold to melt. We simply push it out of the way with shovels if it is in the way of something, but otherwise, one simply walks through it. Snow is a normal part of life in Bern, Sieg.”
She glanced back over at him. “Do you mean to say you have not actually been out in the snow yet, Sieg?”
Aiden scampered back over to Sieg when Lucinda set him down and he took a small scrap of cloth out of his pocket for the dog. Soon the half-elf and the puppy were engaged in a sort of tug-of-war, with Aiden growling playfully through a mouthful of cotton. Sieg kept his eyes on Lucinda however, listening and she spoke. His face fell a little when the noblewoman explained that it would be snowy until part of the way into spring. He shook his head when she asked if he'd been outside in it.
"Only to let Aiden out this morning. I had to drop him off at the kennels but someone had already cleared the path I think, since there was no snow on it. Other than that I've been working most of the day in the castle." He shivered. "The snow melts on my clothes, and it's very cold and wet."
At that moment his concentration on the game with Aiden lapsed and the puppy managed to yank the cloth out of his fingers. Wagging his tail triumphantly the dog carried it over to Lucinda, tossing his head to wave it towards her.
Lucinda laughed and bent down to pet the dog again, congratulating him on his win.
"Don't you have a winter cloak, Sieg?" she asked. "If you do not, that is something we will have to fix. You will need it here."
As Aiden laid down to worry the cloth with his teeth, Sieg shook his head. "I assumed the winter weight uniform was all I could get? I didn't want to be out of form. There's something specific for snow?"
He looked down, then it dawned on him. "Oh; it's something waterproof isn't it? Like a rain cloak?"
Lucinda sat down and nodded. "Yes, for outdoors. It is also heavier than a rain cloak, to help keep you warm. Did no one warn you about the winter, Sieg? Great-Uncle must have said something? It's very cold, especially in comparison to Courdon."
The half-elf rubbed the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly. "Well yes, he warned me about the cold, but ah, I guess specific things I'd need to do to be prepared must have slipped his mind? Or else he assumed someone here would go into those things?"
He sighed, "And well... Since coming here I've discovered that being told something and understanding it are not the same. I had no real idea when everyone was warning me about the cold just... how cold they meant."
"I see," Lucinda said, rising. "I will return in a moment."
Lucinda left the room and returned a few minutes later carrying a cloak. She unfolded it and held it out for him to see. "This is likely a little long for you, but you can borrow it until we have one made for you. I'll see to that today. I'm sorry, Sieg, I should have thought to make sure you had a cloak since it was clear you were unused to the Bernian climate."
Sieg was surprised, but he stood and accepted the cloak with a shy grin. "Ah, thank you Lady Lucinda. It's alright, I'm sure you have your own things to do without having to keep track of me all the time. I've... I've been trying to be more... to learn how to take care of myself."
As he spoke Aiden abandoned the scrap of cloth he'd been playing with and came over to sniff the end of the cloak that was dragging the ground. Sieg wound it a bit higher on his arm before the puppy could decide to tug it or roll on it or something similar. He gave a small, sad smile. "If I'm going to take care of someone else I should know how to take care of myself. There's just... so much to learn. But thank you for being patient with me."
"I don't mind, Sieg. I have my duties, and my excursions into the city, but I also have a maid who does most of my looking after me for me. Still, I will let you handle it. It's good you are able to be more independent. It is a good sign; it means you are growing past what they did to you in Courdon," Lucinda said with a smile.
"Now, I was thinking, let us skip the music lessons today. You need to be properly introduced to snow. It will be fun. What say you?"
Sieg bowed wordlessly when Lucinda told him to see to having a cloak made, making a mental note to ask one of the other servants where he might go to get something like that. However, when the Stallion told him she was going to "introduce him to snow," he blinked at her in surprise.
"I, uh... If you think it's a good idea Lady but I..."
He snapped his mouth closed on the objection before it could fully emerge. Though he was very dubious- and unenthusiastic about going outside where it was even colder- he nodded. "Never mind, you're right. Aiden, heel."
The puppy glanced up at Sieg, then moved over so that he was standing next to the half-elf's legs, staring up at his face while waiting to see what would happen next.
"Lovely!" Lucinda said with a giggle. "I will only be a minute."
Lucinda went into the other room and returned two minutes later dressed for going outside. She was holding her gloves, waiting to put them on until they made their way outside.
"I suppose you've never heard of a snowball fight?" Lucinda asked as she led the way down the hall.
Sieg hurriedly put on the cloak Lucinda had loaned him, frowning a bit as he followed her. "N-no my lady... but I can't fight, I'm... I don't w-want to hurt anyone."
Lucinda glanced over her shoulder at Sieg and smiled. "Oh, Sieg, a snowball fight is supposed to be fun, not painful. It is a friendly game. I used to play it all winter long with my aunt and uncles and the servants' children. We would divide into teams and make forts. I once or twice slipped snow down Garrick's shirt when he was being bossy."
She opened the side door out into the gardens. Everything was coated with white, fluffy snow. She pulled on her gloves and then bent down and scooped up a handful of snow to test it. "Yes, it is just right for packing."
She gathered a little more snow and shaped it into a ball and then showed it to Sieg. "This is a snowball. Take a handful or two of snow and pack it together in your hands, shaping it into a ball, like I did."
Sieg shivered at the idea of putting snow down someone's shirt. But he followed Lucinda outside, hissing involuntarily as the cold hit him. It was cold, so, so cold...
He clenched his teeth to stop the chattering, and nodded quickly. He knelt down, taking some of the snow into his hands, and tried to pull it into a ball like Lucinda had. He was interrupted, however, when Aiden flung himself forwards into a deeper drift with a yip of joy, rolling in the snow.
"Aiden, no!" Sieg objected, watching these antics with concern. "Come back, you'll get all wet and it's cold!"
The dog looked up at him at the word "come," pouncing towards the half-elf with excitement and licking his face. Sieg smiled, putting his forehead against the top of Aiden's head. "Stop that, let me finish," he chided.
"Sieg, let Aiden play," Lucinda said with a laugh, reaching down to stroke the dog's head. "Unless you leave him out for hours in the snow and cold, the snow won't hurt him. He will stay warmer if you allow him to play and run around a little. Simply dry him off when he comes in and he will be fine. Most dogs like snow. You don't want to give him a negative association with snow, especially given how much we get around here."
Sieg sighed. "I just worry. He's so little, and it's so cold..."
Standing up with his handful of snow. It was somewhat smushed, lumpy and furrowed from his fingers. He held it up for Lucinda's inspection.
"I think I might need to see how you did that, my lady," he said apologetically, as Aiden sat down at his heels with a frantically wagging tail.
Lucinda reached down again and scooped up some snow again. She stood up and raised her hands to a level where Sieg could clearly see them as she shaped the snow. "Do you need to watch me do it again, or do you want to try?"
The half-elf watched as Aiden wandered off again, digging a whole in a nearby drift, before turning his attention back to Lucinda. "I think... maybe I can try it."
He knelt down again, trying to form the snow into a ball. He was more successful this time, and while his snowball was smaller then Lucinda's it was the correct shape and density. "I think I got it this time. Is this right?"
Lucinda examined his snowball and smiled. "You did it. Good job, Sieg."
Lucinda turned to look at Aiden playing in the snow and smiled.
"Animals are built to tolerate the cold better than people," Lucinda said. "You sound like what I was told my father was like with me as a child. Dolly said he would not let me out of the house after it dropped below a certain temperature, was raining or snowing, or before the dew was off the grass or was falling. Father was very over-protective."
She picked up her snowball. "So, would you like to try throwing them? We don't have to throw them at each other, if you are not ready for that."
Sieg smiled a little sadly. "I just don't like people to get hurt. But, but your father sounds like a nice person. Being protective of someone, you have to care about them. My father he... he wanted to protect me too."
The half-elf shook his head. "I can do it. I just... let me try."
He gave the snowball a light underhanded toss, and as he did so, Aiden dashed towards where it had landed, biting at the snow as if to pick it up. Sieg gave that soft, light exhaling that was his laugh.
"Most people, rational, decent people, don't like to see people get hurt, but there is a point where it becomes smothering. Still, fathers are like that. My father was a good person; a very good and loving father," Lucinda said. "Yours seems like he was too."
Lucinda looked over at Sieg and then back to where Aiden was trying to pick up the remains of the snowball. "That was a good toss, but a little light. You would likely miss a moving target. Aiden is very lively, isn't he. Here, Aiden. Here, boy!"
Once Lucinda had the dog's attention, she wound up and threw the snowball.
Sieg shrugged, his expression bleak. "He was the only person in the world who cared about me. Who... who loved me. He meant the w-world to me. I was an accident, but he still gave... everything for me."
As Lucinda threw her snowball, Aiden scurried after it, barking excitedly, and leapt into the air to try to catch it. As his teeth closed over the snowball, it exploded into powder. Sieg shook his head. "I usually let him run around in the morning, but I was worried about the cold today. That's probably why he has so much energy. I'll try to be less... protective. I don't want to be smothering."
"You're a good person, Sieg. You're doing very well with Aiden. He's going to grow into a beautiful and healthy dog under your care," Lucinda said as she watched Aiden run. "Everyone needs advice the first time no matter what they are doing."
Lucinda sighed and looked down. "I'm sorry you lost your father, Sieg. He sounds like he was a good man. I would have liked to have met him. Still, you were clearly worth it to him. You must have brought him happiness in such a dark world."
The half-elf winced. "My mother brought him happiness. When I was conceived I made it impossible for them to keep their relationship a secret. They tried to escape, so they could be together and raise me in freedom, but they were caught and... my father's master used me to make sure he'd never repeat the escape attempt."
He knelt down, grabbing another handful of the snow and rolling it into a ball. Aiden, catching sight of this, barked at the half-elf, and he threw it in the dog's direction. As Aiden chased the snowball, Sieg looked towards Lucinda. "They scars on my hands, my arms, my face... most of them aren't for anything I did. My master just hurt me as a threat to keep my father in line."
Realizing what he was saying, Sieg bowed his head. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... I shouldn't talk about this, it's not... They're not memories I'd wish on anyone else. I'm sorry Lady Lucinda."
"Sieg, none of that was your fault, and if you hadn't brought your father some measure of happiness, your old master would not have found that using you as collateral against him would have been an effective method of control," Lucinda said, watching as Aiden romped through the snow. "I do not mind if you tell me these things, Sieg. They are terrible, however, bottling them up inside often prevents healing."
The half-elf looked up into the sky, leaden grey with clouds as snow continued to fall. He hugged his arms to his chest, though he didn't really seem to notice the cold. "I wanted so badly to make him happy. And we tried, both of us. We never set a toe out of line, we obeyed orders, we worked quickly and efficiently, but it didn't help. In the process of the escape attempt my father actually tried to... to fight back against the slave hunters, to protect my mother. Our master never trusted him again after that, and he hurt me just to make the point that he could. That our lives were in his hands and there was nothing we could do to defy him."
Snowflakes were starting to dust his face and eyelashes, and he lowered his head to look down at Aiden, still jumping around in the drifts. "Our master was wrong. There was something he hadn't taken into account- our lives were in his hands, but if those lives ended, he'd have no more power over us. So..."
He clenched his teeth, eyes were stinging. Aiden looked towards him, his posture becoming questioning, and the puppy left off playing in the snow to walk towards him. The dog pushed his head into Sieg's leg, and he sighed, kneeling down in the snow to stroke the dog's head.
"Papa told me he didn't want me to suffer a punishment for his actions anymore. So h-he saw to it that he w-wasn't around anymore for me to b-be used against."
Sieg's hand stopped moving on Aiden's head, and the dog whined.
Lucinda sighed and looked up at the sky, trying to find words that would somehow be comforting and coming up with nothing. She bent down and scoop up some snow, instead of making it into a snowball, she threw it into the air and watched as it rained down again.
"Sieg, I... I am glad you are free now," she said, trying to smile at him. "I am glad no one can ever hurt you like that again."
Sieg watched the snow flurrying down, and sighed. "I just wish sometimes he could have been here with me. He and my mother fought so hard so that he could be free, and it ended with nothing but tragedy. I'm free thanks to a strange series of miracles and the help of your family."
Aiden jumped up a little, licking Sieg's cheek, and he chuckled softly. "Stop Aiden, I'm alright."
He rolled up another snowball and tossed it for the dog, making Aiden bark excitedly and run after it. Standing back up he turned to Lucinda. "Lady... thank you. For... for your kindness. I never had any human friends before I came here. Sometimes I tried to help the other slaves, to look at their wounds or comfort them when they were afraid or upset. It made me feel good, like I was a little less alone, like I could spare the others the suffering I'd always endured. But I was and always would be the Half-Breed. Suspect, a monster, a freak. Even the other slaves looked down on me. No one would ever have bought me gloves to hide my scars, or loaned me a jacket, or taught me to sing. If I tried to talk about my father, I'd have been punished. I have scars on my hands from where I was punished for crying when died."
Aiden galloped back over, jumping around Lucinda, and Sieg smiled. "Just... thank you."
Lucinda placed a hand on Sieg's shoulder, slowly so as not to frighten him as previous attempts to do so had. "You're welcome, Sieg."
She then bent down and picked up a handful of snow and crafted it into a snowball. "Now, I think it is time I finished your introduction to snow, and you will never be a proper citizen of Bern until you've taken part in at least one snowball fight. I will give you first throw. Throw a snowball at me; I promise it is fun. Be warned, I'm not going to be too easy on you."
Sieg winced, his jaw tightening a little at the idea of throwing anything at another person, let alone a noble. It wasn't that he didn't trust Lucinda, or that he thought she'd retaliate when she herself had invited him to do this. It was simply years and years of conditioning against any sort of violence, and a very personal aversion to hurting anyone else in the way he'd been hurt all his life. But he knelt down, rolling up some snow into a ball, and pulled his arm back to throw it. He held the readiness posture, hesitating, his throat feeling horribly dry.
It's fine. She won't be angry, you won't be punished. It's FINE.
"I'm sorry!" he yelped instinctively, squeezing his eyes shut as he swung his arm overhand to throw the snowball at Lucinda. His aim wasn't very good, however, and it ended up sailing several inches off to her right.
"I... I missed," he muttered, looking a little dejected. He'd finally worked up the courage to throw the thing, and he'd missed. He knelt down to gather up more snow as Aiden cavorted in the snow between him and Lucinda panting and wagging his tail excitedly.
Lucinda hid the smile as the snowball flew by, missing her.
"Not bad," she said, throwing hers and hitting him in the knee, deliberately going for a weak throw to ease him into the game. She grabbed another handful began to shape it into a snowball. "You've got to move faster, the game doesn't involve turn taking. It is about speed. See if you can hit me this time, because I'm going to be ready to throw again in a moment."
The half-elf flinched instinctively when her snowball hit his knee, but it didn't hurt in the slightest. He relaxed a fraction.
"It's difficult," he explained, flushing crimson with embarrassment. "If, if I'd thrown something at a noble in Courdon I could have been e-executed for it. I know you won't hurt me, but that memory is still there, and it's like... like a wall in my head."
He stood with his new snowball, bit his lip, and with a soft whimper he flung it towards Lucinda, still trying not to throw too hard lest he hurt her.
"This is good for you," Lucinda assured him, laughing as the snowball struck her shoulder and exploded into powder. "You can move past anything if you try. Good throw, but harder next time. You shan't hit me with throws like that when I start moving."
She threw her snowball at him and then gathered more snow for another snowball. She threw that one, purposely missing him with the second snowball so he wouldn't feel too embarrassed by his first missed attempt.
Sieg hadn't quite picked up on the fact that he should move out of the way yet- he was accustomed to having to stand still and accept punishments as they came and took the first flung snowball with a twitch but no attempts at evasion. The second one missed him somehow, which surprised him, but when he turned to try and retaliate he found Lucinda was, as promised, not making it easy. He tried to throw his snowballs at her, but was always hitting the air where she had been instead of where she was at that moment in time.
It finally occured to him when he had to throw up an arm with a startled yelp to shield his face that maybe he shouldn't stand in one place. He was liberally coated with powder by this point, and he glanced around for a few seconds before spotting a nearby tree, which he ducked behind to give himself a moment of breathing space. Aiden followed after him, panting and wagging his tail with excitement at all this activity.
"I d-don't think I'm v-very good at this g-g-game," he called his teeth chattering again, though he sounded more amused and sheepish than sincerely upset at his failure.
"I think you are getting better," Lucinda called. "You moved to a hiding place. Do you need a break?"
She stood against a nearby tree, waiting to see what Sieg would do.
I need a warm fire, he thought, though he didn't say it out loud. At least the cloak was keeping him from being wet, but he was still shivering hard.
"I can't hit you!" he called, poking his head around the tree, but ready to duck again if she tried to throw at him. "I always end up throwing at where you were instead of where you are!"
"The trick is to throw ahead of the direction I seem to be running in," Lucinda called back. "You want me to run into the path of the snowball."
She lobbed a snowball at the tree to try to scare him out, careful not to aim where it could hit him in the face.
But it had the opposite affect, as Sieg ducked back behind the tree as the snowball came at him. Trying to keep the tree between himself and Lucinda he shouted back, "But you'll just change direction and go the other way!"
The half-elf still wasn't entirely sure where the fun came into this. Throwing things at other people and having things thrown at him didn't really connect in his head with "fun." Scary, unpleasant, and absolutely forbidden, but not fun. What was he doing wrong?
Gritting his teeth, he knelt down and tried to roll another snowball. Rather frustrated by this point, he came around the tree and flung it fairly hard, though he tripped on the hem of the overlong cloak in the process and fell sideways into the snow with a yelp. Aiden ran over to him, licking his face and startling a laugh out of him. "I'm fine, I'm fine, stop."
Lucinda was distracted enough by Sieg tripping over his cloak that she forgot to dodge the snowball, and it her her in the face. She collapsed to the ground laughing and wiping snow out of her eyes. "Sieg, are you all right?" she called between peals of laughter. "Good throw!"
Sieg glanced around when Lucinda called his name, and felt his heart leap into his throat when he saw her sitting in the snow with her face covered in powder. He rolled over and crawled through the snow towards her, realizing only belatedly that she was laughing. He relaxed a fraction, though there was still concern in his amber eyes.
"I'm fine, I'm fine, but wh-what about you, are you okay? I didn't mean to, I wasn't trying to hit your face, I'm s-sorry m'Lady."
Aiden, ever helpful jumped up into Lucinda's lap and began licking the snow from her cheeks. In spite of his worry, Sieg smiled a little at the puppy's antics.
"I am fine, Sieg," Lucinda called, stroking Aiden's ears and head as he licked the snow off her face. "Good boy, Aiden."
She gently shooed the dog out of her lap and stood up, dusting the snow from her clothes. "The face is fair game, Sieg. It was a good throw. Now, you had better get up; no one said the game was over."
She scooped up more snow to make another snowball, moving slowly to let Sieg get up.
Wincing a little, Sieg pushed himself upright and backed away. She had far more stamina than he'd have credited, especially given how cold it was. Hoping to distract her, he asked, "Lady, in summer when it rains sometimes there's a storm that makes it rain very hard and there's thunder and lightening. Does... does snow do that too? It's snowing lightly right now but I should p-probably know..."
He ducked quickly around a bush to shield himself from the snowballs he knew would be coming, scooping up some snow himself. Could he get her and stay hidden? Maybe but she'd just come around the hedge and he'd be vulnerable again. He poked his head out to get a good look at where she was, and tossed a snowball towards her- trying to aim off to one side in the hopes he'd get her as she moved to dodge.
"Yes, it is called a blizzard! Sometimes there is even thunder and lightning during it, but that is very rare," Lucinda called back. "Do not go out in a blizzard if you are no longer in Destrier. It is very easy to get lost in the snow and freeze to death. Even if you are the city, be careful if you do have to go out in it."
Lucinda watched the snowball sail by as she stood making her snowball and shook her head. "You need to get me moving before you throw the snowball and then take into account my movement when you aim, Sieg!" she called. "Now, you had better run, because I'm coming."
Lucinda gathered up her snowballs in her cloak and ran towards the hedge he had taken shelter behind.
Sieg yelped as Lucinda ran towards him, and made as if to bolt away- only to trip on the hem of his cloak and stumble to his knees in the snow again. He desperately scrambled some snow together into a ball, rolled over on his back and, accepting that he was inevitably going to get pelted, flung his lone missile at Lucinda just as she was coming around the hedge.
The snowball struck Lucinda in the chest, but she took it knowing he was helpless to her coming barrage of snowballs. She threw them lightly so as not to overwhelm Sieg too much, but he was still left covered in snow. She walked over and offered Sieg her hand. "Would you like to call it a day and go inside and have a pot of tea in front of the fire?"
The half-elf sighed, flopping his head back momentarily in the slush as Aiden trotted over to lick his face. Then he grinned crookedly and let Lucinda help him up. "I don't think I'm very g-good at this game, my lady. A warm fire sounds w-wonderful though."
As the two of them turned towards the castle, a thoughtful look came over Sieg's face. "Before... before I came here, I'd never played games at all. At least, not since before I was too young to remember. All I knew was work and sleep. 'Fun' was... it was a word, an idea I didn't understand. L-like when Papa would tell me about my m-mother and I didn't have any attachment t-to her because she was just a name and a story."
He shook his head. "I guess I just, just wanted to say... I'm not very good at games like this, at doing things just to do them because they're enjoyable, but I hope I can learn. You seem very happy, doing this."
Lucinda smiled at Sieg as they walked back towards the castle. "I am happy, not only because the game was fun, but also because I was playing with someone who I enjoy spending time with. You are my friend, Sieg, and I certainly hope someday you will be able to do things out of simple enjoyment. I think you will, in time. Also, I think you did admirably for your first snowball fight. You're a true Bernian citizen now."
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Post by Shinko on Aug 28, 2014 20:05:54 GMT -5
This post originally updated for:
I Hear You Now
and
The Flowers of Beltane
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Post by Shinko on Aug 29, 2014 19:07:26 GMT -5
BWAHAHAHA, LET THERE BE VIOLENCE~ This is going to be a longer, sequential story. Right now it's looking like it's going to be about four parts long. It takes place after "The Flowers of Beltane" but before "News." = D Enjoy! To Be Strong: Part OneMorgaine gave the door an experimental jiggle; the hinges rattled, but it showed no signs of opening. She yanked, with the same result. Smiling, she then took a small key out of her workbelt and inserted it into the keyhole. It turned, and with a click the mechanism inside triggered. This time when she pushed on the door, it opened readily.
“You’re all set, Master Albury,” she said cheerfully, handing the key over to him. “This should keep those kids out of your barn from now on.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Miss Folet,” the man said gratefully. “Smithson’s done well by you, no doubt about that.”
The eighteen year old woman winked cheerfully. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate your compliments, but he’ll appreciate payment more.”
“Of course,” the farmer said. He took a small shoulderbag he’d brought out to the barn with him and offered it to Morgaine. She inspected the contents; five runestones for the lock, and two scrolls for the install, just as they’d agreed.
“Looks good,” she said, putting the bag over her own shoulder. “I’ll bring the bag back to you tomorrow morning at the market square.”
“Thankee, Miss Folet,” the farmer said, waving as she turned to walk away.
Morgaine lifted her arms in a contented stretch, popping her neck as she did so. She loved this job. Building locks was a delicate business, like constructing an intricate puzzle. And you had to make sure each like was minutely different on the inside, or the mechanism would open for someone else’s key. The work was an endless challenge that tested her ingenuity on a daily basis- and that was exactly why she’d chosen it over any other career path.
It was late July in the tiny town of Corvus, and the summer sun was scorching. As Morgaine walked down the street she occasionally heard someone complain about the temperature, but it didn’t seem so bad to her. Especially not when compared to her swampy home village of Cypress Springs. There it was not only hotter, being further south, it was horrifically humid. At least the heat here was relatively dry.
The young woman arrived at the the shop where she had been sharing houseroom with her locksmithing master and his wife for the past two and a half years. She pushed open the door, calling out, “I’m back!”
Brennan Smithson looked up from his crafting table in the back of the room. Other than him the room appeared to be empty, so his wife must have been elsewhere. When he caught sight of her, he grinned. “What, done already? That was pretty fast- you didn’t rush the job did you?”
“I never rush the job,” Morgaine replied with dignity. “Here’s the man’s payment. It should all be there, I checked.”
She set the bag down on Smithson’s crafting table, and he glanced up at her with a raised eyebrow. “And you’re giving it to me why exactly?”
The woman blinked. “Because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Or do you not want to be paid for your services?”
“I’ll take payment for my services, but this was your project. You accepted the commission, you ordered the parts, you did the crafting, and you completed the install.”
“I… but… I-I’m an apprentice, apprentices don’t get paid for their work! We’re paid in room and board!”
“You were an apprentice,” Smithson corrected her with a grin. “As of this morning, you stopped being one. You’ve been a fantastic student, Morgaine; I have nothing else to teach you that you won’t learn just as well from experience.”
The young woman stared at her master- former master now. “You… you’re serious?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Of course, you can stay on here as my assistant if you like, but you’ll have to start paying rent on that room of yours or get your own place.”
She laughed, “Oh, so you tell me I can keep my money, and the next second you start counting off all the money I’ll have to be giving you. A merchant right to your core, as always.”
“A man has to make a living,” he pointed out with a grin. “Besides, you-”
Morgaine would never find out what else Smithson had been about to say, because at that moment he was interrupted by the sound of a scream.
“What the ‘Pit?” he said, frowning. Both of the locksmiths walked towards the doorway. He pushed the curtains away from the window, just in time to see several armored horseman thunder down the street in front of them. They were armed to the teeth, and Morgaine realized with horror that several of them were carrying bloodied weapons.
“Bandits?” she hissed as Smithson yanked the drapes shut again.
“Worse,” he growled, his eyes going wide with fear, though it didn’t show in his voice. “That armor is way too good for low-life bandits. Those are foreign mercenaries. They’re slavers, Morgaine, come to cart us off to Courdon.”
The young woman’s blood ran cold at those words. She knew about Courdon, of course, everyone in Corvus did. And Belial had told her the Courdonians liked to raid Nid’aigle for elven slaves, but this was the first time she could remember there being any evidence of their presence being seen in Kolanth.
“They must have decided to go for a softer target then the elves this time,” she said, wincing as more screams sounded from outside. “What do we do?”
“We? Not a ruddy thing, you idiot, we’re not heroes!” he snapped. Before the man got the chance to say anything more, there was a loud crash, and the blade of an ax appeared in the door to the lockshop.
“They’re coming in!” Morgaine hissed.
“I can see that!” Smithson snapped. “The window, go out the back window, now!”
“And go where, they’re probably all over town by now!” Morgaine hissed, though she was already obeying. Fortunately the wood of the merchant’s door was good quality, and the Courdonian seemed to be having trouble yanking his ax back out of it for another swing.
“The elflands,” he said. “You’ve been to the elf city at least two or three times now with Braham haven’t you? Go there and get us help.”
“What? Master, I can’t, it’s an hour’s journey on an elven horse, I don’t even have a normal horse! It’ll take at least three hours to get there, and another for them to get back here, not even counting the time they’d need to get ready!”
“I know,” he said bluntly. “But it’s the only hope we have. Morgaine, for Woo’s sake, there’s no time to argue! Braham has been teaching you Elvish so you can talk to them, and you’re small enough that you can get out of town without being noticed. But you have to go now!”
As if to confirm his words, there was an explosive crash from the door, and it splintered inwards.
“I’ll distract them! Go!”
He shoved her out the open window, and she yelped as she fell and hit her shoulder on the ground below. She heard the sound of raised voices from in the shop, and she wanted to look at see what was going on, but Smithson was right. There was no time; the elves were the only fighting force anywhere remotely close enough to help them, and she was the only person in Kolanth who knew more than five words total of Elvish. She bit her lip, and scrambled under the windows towards the alleyway that would bring her back around the shop.
Chaos was everywhere. As Morgaine darted from cover to cover, she could see people screaming and running from the armored men. The expressions of savage glee made her want to punch them, and it was everything the locksmith could do not to intervene when she saw yet another friend or neighbor being dragged away. There were a great many injured, but the mercenaries seemed to be trying to avoid fatalities- they really were slavers then. The more villages they caught alive, the more they would be paid.
Finally Morgaine reached the edge of the houses, and the ten meters of open grass that was between Kolanth and the forest that hid the elven city. The locksmith knew that she didn’t dare take the road, but hopefully if she followed the direction of the sunlight she’d still find her way...
But it seemed that she had miscalculated. She didn’t know if it was the open window back at the lock shop that had tipped the Courdonians off, or if she’d inadvertently made some sort of noise that alerted the ones outside. Either way, one minute she was making a mad dash for the treeline at the edge of Kolanth, the next she heard an angry voice behind her, and the thunder of hoofbeats.
Her heart leapt into her throat, and she ran at full pelt towards the treeline. If she could get to it, the horse wouldn’t be able to follow her, just a few more feet…
Just as she made it to the edge of the forest, there was a flash of yellow light behind her. All of her muscles went rigid at once, and the forward momentum carried her forward over the edge of a shallow gully. If her throat had worked she would have cried out in pain; the leg that had been stretched out forward in her stride hit the bottom of the trench at an awkward angle, and it felt like her heel had been stabbed through with a sword blade.
She landed hard, lying in the trench frozen in a running position, unable to even move her eyes to look at what was going on. Had… had the mercenary used magic on her somehow?
In her peripheral vision she could see an armored figure standing over her. She wanted to look up, to show him she wasn’t going to be cowed by him, but her entire body was still completely immobilized.
The mercenary grabbed her by the hair, dragging her stiff body upright. Then, for no reason Morgaine could discern, he drew out a small dagger and slashed a line across her cheek. It bit like cold fire, and almost immediately she could feel blood dripping down her face. The Courdonian repeated the procedure, tearing her left sleeve almost completely off and making a shallow but bloody cut across her upper arm. He took the knife and made several ragged slashes on her skirts, and as if for good measure yanked off her head scarf and pulled her hair out of it’s bun.
Then, against all logic, he dropped her. She hit the ground painfully, the ankle she’d injured in her original fall exploding with agony that would have made her cry out if she had been able to move. She heard the sound of footsteps moving away, followed by the jangle of metal as he climbed back up into his horse’s saddle. Was… was he leaving? After going to the trouble of using magic to paralyze her and using her as a scratching post for his knife, was he seriously just going to walk away?
Morgaine didn’t understand it, but there wasn’t time to wonder at it. As her limbs gradually loosened, all of her focus was on regaining enough mobility to stand back up. She had to stand up, she had to get through the woods to the road, she had to get help. Even if the Courdonian had inexplicably left her in the woods, she could still hear screaming from the village, and the cruel laughter of the mercenaries.
Then, suddenly her muscles sagged, and she found that she could move again. Pushing herself up, she wiped at the blood on her cheek and ripped her dangling sleeve off the rest of the way. When she tried to stand, she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. Her ankle hurt, oh Woo it hurt. She tried to put weight on it again, and thought she might faint. Was it broken?
That didn’t matter. Gritting her teeth, she forced her weight down on the damaged joint, and though the pain brought tears to her eyes she was able to stand.
Moving far more slowly then she would have liked, but as fast as her damaged ankle would allow, she made her way towards Nid’aigle.
Please, please, please let me get there in time… |
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Post by Shinko on Aug 30, 2014 14:50:19 GMT -5
Coninuation of the story I started yesterday. To Be Strong: Part TwoMorgaine didn’t know how long she wandered in the woods, trying to head in the direction she knew lead roughly towards Nid’aigle. Without a road to follow the sun was her only guide, and using it to gauge her direction also meant she was very much aware of how far it was travelling across the sky. She knew it had to have been several hours at least, and she wanted to scream with frustration at her own inability to move any faster. How many people were dying while she hobbled through the woods like a cripple? How far away would the slavers get with her friends before she could send the elves to help them?
She collapsed several times, her damaged ankle flatly refusing to hold her weight anymore, but each time she hauled herself back up bodily by the trunk of a tree. The joint felt like it was swollen inside her boot, though she didn’t want to take the time she would need to actually stop and inspect it. If she actually saw the damage, it was entirely possible the psychological discomfort would just make it hurt worse.
“Stop.”
Morgaine jerked in surprise at the sound of a voice after hours of no noises except her own painful whimpering and the birds in the woods. With the loss of her concentration on forward momentum, her injured leg buckled and she fell with an agonized gasp. Despite the pain that was making her want to hack her foot off, however, she forced herself to look for the person who had spoken.
Emerging from the trees was an elf in light leather armor- a sentry. A second was not far behind the first. At first both of them were looking at her with stern frowns, clearly suspicious. But when they saw the obvious pain she was in, concern edged into their expressions.
“Who you?” the first speaker asked, his Kythian painfully bad. “Hurting? Been fight?”
“Kolanth was attacked,” she said- speaking in Elvish, not Kythian. “Courdonians. We need help.”
She didn’t know all the words she needed to say what she wanted to say- that the attackers were slavers, that the elves needed to hurry because it had already taken far too long for her just to get there- but she didn’t need to. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the two sentries locked eyes and scowled. One of them ran off into the forest, presumably to alert his fellows, while the one who had spoken knelt beside her.
“You can speak Elvish?” he asked, tilting his head curiously.
“A little,” she answered. “Belial Braham is my friend. He is teaching me. Just please use small words.”
“Ahhh, I see,” the elf said. He frowned, seemingly trying to think of simple terms she might understand. “The other elf will tell my brothers what is happening. What about you? You are cut, I can see this. Is something wrong with your legs?”
“Hurt my ankle… my foot. I think it’s broken.”
The elf shook his head, an amused smile on his face. “It isn’t. You would not be able to walk at all if it was. Let me see.”
She shifted so that he could get at her damaged foot. It took all of her self control not to scream when he pulled her boot off, though he did so as gently as he could. The ankle in question was badly swollen, covered in purple bruises, and when he jostled it Morgaine whimpered involuntarily.
“A sprain. A bad sprain, but not broken at least. Still,” there was a light of respect in the sentry’s eyes when he looked back up at her. “You walked all the way from Kolanth to Nid’aigle on this? You have a strong spirit, human.”
She smiled thinly. “Thank you, but… could you carry me? I don’t think I could stand again.”
The elf shrugged, “I was going to even if you didn’t ask. But how did you escape with this wound? You are cut, so the Courdonians must have caught you.”
As he picked her up and helped settle her on his back, Morgaine frowned. She still wasn’t really sure about the answer to that herself. “I did. He cut me, then walked away.”
“What?!”
“I don’t know. He cut me and walked away. I… I don’t have the words to explain in Elvish.”
The elf was silent for a while, obviously thinking hard. As the buildings of Nid’aigle came into view ahead of them, he said, “Then you must talk to someone who knows Kythian.”
It was late in the afternoon, and the elves who were out on the street watched with interest as the sentry trotted by with Morgaine on his back. Mingled throughout the crowd she saw figures in armor, who all seemed to be headed in the same direction as them; somehow the other sentry must have gotten back and signaled for the elven knights to gather. Morgaine glanced around hopefully for Belial, but he was nowhere immediately obvious and after a moment she gave up looking.
Finally they reached a small, squarish building set apart from the others. It had a wide open field beside it, with pells and horse hurdles and even a tilting arena. The sentry brought her inside the building, and set her down on a bench just in the doorway. She watched as knights filed passed, looking down at her curiously as she looked up at them, searching for one face in particular.
“Human,” a new voice said, in heavily accented but blessedly understandable Kythian. Morgaine looked up to see a blonde woman approach from further in the building. She had an air of command about her, and a muscular physique to back it up. “I am Anri Hasek, commander of the knights of Nid’aigle. Your Elvish is decent, but it is not good enough to convey all that we must know. Tell me what has happened, in your language. I will translate for these others.”
Morgaine winced. “Is there time for that? The people in Kolanth need help now!”
“Miss, by this point whatever was happening in Kolanth is already long over,” the elven woman said, not unkindly. “We will go after the slavers and retrieve your people, this I swear. But what you told my sentry about the nature of your injuries begs a great many questions that need answering. I will not lead my knights into an uncertain situation, and spend their lives like sand.”
The human woman couldn’t really argue with that- Anri was right. But her gut twisted, and she was overwhelmed with the sensation that she’d failed them somehow. If she’d just been a little faster, if she’d be able to slip away without being noticed and not gotten hurt…
“Morgaine?!”
The locksmith’s head snapped up. She knew that voice, she’d know it anywhere. Turning, she caught sight of the man she’d been longing to see, his amber eyes wide with astonishment to find Morgaine here. As he took in the lacerations on her, and the mutilated state of her clothes, his confusion turned into horror.
“Belial!” Morgaine called. She instinctively tried to stand so she could go to him, but cried out in pain as her ankle reminded her of the way it had been mistreated over the last few hours. Her leg crumpled, and the elven commander was forced to catch Morgaine under her armpits so she wouldn’t fall. Morgaine heard Belial make a strangled noise of panic, and in spite of everything that was going on a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. He never changed.
“Sir Braham, you know this woman?” Anri remarked, glancing at him. Seemingly unaware of the baffled looks he was getting from his fellow elves, or the scrutinizing look in his leader’s eyes, he gently took Morgaine’s weight into his own arms and settled her gently back onto the bench. The human woman leaned her face into his armored elbow, wishing the current circumstances would have allowed her the luxury of breaking down in his arms.
“I do,” he said, gently stroking the locksmith’s head until she had collected herself enough to sit up again. Looking up into his leader’s face, he said softly, “I love her.”
Anri gave no indication that she felt anything at this assertion. After a moment, she shrugged. “Be that as it may, right now she is a witness to a crime, and you are a knight with a job to do. Duty must come first, Sir Braham.”
Morgaine was surprised to see Belial bristle a little at this remark. The human woman had only seen that look in his eyes once before, when he’d taken offense to some rather unflattering assumptions she’d made about his intentions towards her almost a year ago. She knew he was angry, but not because he disagreed with Anri. It was because he was insulted that his commander felt the need to remind him of his responsibilities in the first place.
Still, he said nothing to indicate his annoyance, instead saluting to the elven woman in calculatedly cool silence. He glanced back down at Morgaine, the anger in his bright amber eyes transmuting into worry.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but… please stay safe, Morgaine.”
She reached out and gave his gauntleted hand a squeeze. “You too, love.”
He squeezed back briefly, before pulling away and continuing down the hall. Anri refocused her attention on Morgaine, and coughed slightly.
“You were in a hurry, as I recall?”
Though she didn’t take her eyes away from Belial’s retreating back until he was lost in the crowd, Morgaine complied with Anri’s request. She explained how the Courdonian attack had come seemingly out of nowhere, how she’d escaped out a window while Master Smithson distracted the soldiers, how she’d snuck out of town, and the odd encounter with the magic-wielding Courdonian at the edge of the village.
“After the magic paralyzed me, the mercenary grabbed me,” she said. “He cut my face and arm, ripped up my clothes, and then he just left. He grinned at me and left. After the magic wore off I came here.”
“As I thought; the attack on Kolanth is a diversion,” Anri said with a scowl. “The Courdonians were counting on you not being able to communicate with us and tell us how you got hurt. They just wanted us to see your injuries and fly to the rescue of the human village- leaving Nid’aigle unprotected. And we almost did. But they miscalculated; their chosen mark knew enough Elvish to give the sentries information that painted a very suspicious picture and gave us pause.”
The elf shook her head, “I’d be willing to bet as soon as we ride for Kolanth, there will be a second force waiting to take Nid’aigle.”
“That sounds like a lot of effort to go to for slavers,” Morgaine remarked, frowning. Anri sighed.
“I’m sure Sir Braham has told you this, but Nid’aigle is the last great stronghold of the elves in Kyth. There are four-hundred of us here; that’s a pretty big payday for the slavers if they can pull it off. But if they can’t, they still have the human villagers they kidnapped from Kolanth as a consolation prize.” She turned, clearly getting ready to walk down the hall where the rest of the knights were waiting. “It is a well laid trap, but not insurmountable. We just need to trigger their trap in a controlled manner, and once the immediate threat is neutralized we can rescue the villagers.”
Morgaine wanted to object, but she knew it was pointless. The elven commander was right, rushing out to save the people of Kolanth would be moot if it resulted in the elven city falling. She looked down at her hands, helplessness and anger constricting her heart like a vice.
“Braham must really be fond of you,” Anri said suddenly, not looking at Morgaine. “I haven’t seen him get that angry about something in a long time.”
The locksmith had to smile at that, despite her black mood. “I think he was more upset you thought he would put me before the task at hand.”
“Oh, he was,” Anri said. “But you weren’t looking at his face when he helped you sit back down; you were looking at the inside of his elbow. You might not have seen it, but there was murder in his eyes- he wanted badly to get at whoever did this to you.”
Morgaine gaped at the elf, completely at a loss for words. Anri shrugged. “He’ll get his chance very shortly, make no mistake of that. And a little bit of anger is good for a knight- gives them an edge while fighting. I just hope he can keep a clear head and not let those emotions build so that they cloud his concentration.”
Leaving Morgaine on that chilling note, Anri walked away down the hall.
* * * * *
When Anri explained to the knights of Nid’aigle why they had been summoned- and why Morgaine was sitting in the lobby of the command post covered in injuries- Belial had been utterly horrified.
The Courdonians. It was always the thrice-cursed Courdonians.
It was strange; normally when he fought the slavers (and he fought them fairly often) he just felt a tired sort of pity towards them. These people who could not see the simple beauty of life and the sanctity of the individual, who cared only for their own desires. They were evil and twisted, and needed to be stopped, but they also suffered for their lack of empathy in a way they would never really understand.
But when he’d seen the way they’d hurt Morgaine, how she couldn’t even stand on her own, a spark of rage had kindled in his chest. When Commander Anri explained the trap they had set, and Belial learned the way both his love and the village that was a second home to him had been used, he’d wanted to gut something right then and there.
He didn’t, however. Once the debriefing was finished and the counter-plan was set in motion, instead Belial went looking for Morgaine again. She had been taken to the infirmary attached to the command post, and was sitting on the edge of a bed with her foot looking much less swollen. She looked up with a smile when she saw Belial walk into the room.
“I thought you would have gone already,” she said.
“The commander’s plan will take some time to put into motion,” he replied, sitting next to her on the small bed. “First we must appear to rush to Kolanth, and trigger their attack here. That will take an hour or so to do, given travel time.”
“I presume you aren’t actually going to Kolanth?” she asked.
Belial chuckled. “Always quick to the uptake; no, we aren’t. At least not all of us. Half of one squad is going, with an illusion placed over them to make it appear that there are far more than there actually are. They will alert those waiting in Kolanth, who will signal for the attack to begin here. But instead of trapping us, we will have trapped them.”
Morgaine sighed, leaning backwards across the bed. “Belial… I know you have to prioritize the elves, and it would be stupid to just walk right into what we know is a trap, but I-”
He pulled off one of his gauntlets and brushed her face with gentle fingers. “I know. Believe me Morgaine, I know. I’m worried about the our friends in Kolanth too. I know the atrocities that Courdon is capable of. Do you think I do not want to fly to their rescue, orders or no?”
She leaned into his touch, sighing. “Sorry.”
“There is no need to apologize; I told you, I understand.”
Morgaine sat up again, and kissed him. He returned the gesture, protectively drawing her wounded body close as if to draw her pain into himself. Then, reluctantly, he pulled away.
“You have to go,” she guessed. “Come back safe, alright?”
He stood, giving her chin one last caress with his fingers. “Don’t worry, my dearest. The Courdonians are sadistic and ruthless, but we have faced them before. We can handle them.”
* * * * *
Belial’s hands clenched and unclenched on his spear. At his waist he had also had a sword, and a dagger fixed to the back of his belt as a last resort weapon, but he had always preferred the range of pole weapons. His uncanny hand-eye coordination and aim made him deadly with a set of javelins.
The forest at the edge of Nid’aigle was quiet, but it was a deceptive sort of calm. Even if Belial couldn’t see them, he knew the mercenaries were out there. Soon enough they’d launch their assault. He’d already sent a prayer up to Lord Woo that none of his comrades would be killed in this fight. He didn’t ask that they not be hurt- that was ridiculous- but he hoped against all reasoning that no one would be killed. Especially since there were still the villagers in Kolanth to rescue.
He heard a soft owl call, followed by a series of short frog chirps. That was the signal. The Courdonians were finally on the move. In spite of his buzzing nerves, Belial stopped worrying his spear. The last thing they needed now was for the telltale clinking of his gauntlets to give away his presence.
Finally, he could hear them; the steady footfalls of approaching mercenary soldiers. They weren’t mounted, thank the Woo. Their approach from the forest meant that the undergrowth was too dense for horses. Small favors could make a world of difference.
They were close now, he could see birds and small animals nearby darting for cover through the eye holes in his helmet. A few yards away, another knight met Belial’s eyes and pointed up into the trees. Belial nodded, and as raised his spear as slowly as he could to minimize the sound of metal on metal from his armor. Then, clenching his teeth, he sliced at a rope that was barely visible in the higher branches.
There was a tremendous crash, and the screams of the mercenaries, as a dozen huge limbs crashed down out of the trees above them. Without waiting for them to figure out what had happened, Belial darted out of his cover and rushed the men, his entire squad doing the same.
Though a good few of them had been killed or pinned by the trap and their battle formation was well and truly broken up, the mercenaries were too well trained to go down without a fight. As Belial charged the first of them, spear lowered, the Courdonian immediately brought up his shield and diverted the blow.
But Belial had not been a knight for over three-hundred years for nothing. Using the curve of the shield as against it’s wielder, he brought the spear down and slammed the blade into the crack at the back of the mercenary's knees. The man cried out in pain, his legs buckling, and Belial drew the blade back and rammed it through the eyehole of the enemy’s visor.
He felt sick, as he always did when a battle started. But he shoved the feeling away, concentrating instead on the memory of Morgaine’s injuries, the mental image of her hobbling all the way to Nid’aigle from Kolanth on her bad ankle. What she’d endured was nothing to this. What these monsters put her through, what they were planning to do to Smithson and the tavern keeper and all of their other friends from Kolanth, it could not be ignored.
The anger inside of him spiked again, and when the next Courdonian came at him he was ready. This time it was a swordsman, who tried to cut at Belial’s legs the same way he’d dispatched the shield-wielding mercenary. The elf caught the sword on his spear’s handle, and took advantage of his weapon’s greater length to twist it and slam the man’s helmet. The spear’s blade wasn’t nearly heavy enough to do any real damage, but the loud clattering was enough of a distraction to make the man drop his guard and stumble. That was all the opening Belial needed to slice through the man’s throat.
He didn’t even have time to decide if he felt sick or triumphant about that, because another mercenary was on him almost instantly. This one had a small silver band hanging from his sword belt, which sparkled in the light and caught Belial’s eye. He recognized it instantly, but too slow- the mercenary touched one of the markings etched into the silver, and Belial cried out as lightning jumped from the band into his chest. He was blown backwards and off his feet, and he felt his muscles twitch and spasm as pain arced through his body. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think.
The talisman wielding Courdonian waited until the electrical current had stopped before following up his attack, but as soon as the pain started to ebb Belial could see the man bring up his sword. Gritting his teeth, the elf forced his arm to move, bringing his spear around so that the iron shod base slammed the mercenary in the back of his knee. He stumbled, but lying on the ground as he was Belial didn’t really have the chance to follow up on the opening. The elf tried to scramble to his feet, but felt a burst of pain as the Courdonian slammed him on the back with his sword.
Panting hard, every muscle in his body quivering with pain, his veins searing with the liquid fire of adrenaline, Belial took his spear in both hands and slammed the blunt end towards the man again. The enemy caught it in his free hand, wrestling Belial for control of the weapon even as he tried to stick the elf with his sword.
Belial waited until the enemy had almost succeeded in yanking the spear away; then he struck. Lashing out with his left leg, Belial hooked the mercenary by the knee and yanked hard, pulling him off his feet. The Courdonian let go of the spear, crying out in surprise, and fell backwards with a clatter of armor. Almost at once Belial lurched up, using his spear as an improvised cane. Then, he drove the blade into the man’s neck before he had time to rise.
Belial yanked his spear free, riding high on the battle fever. He looked around for someone in mercenary armor that was not presently engaged by an elven knight. Next opponent, next fight-
He felt something heavy slam into his right arm, and a split second later the weight transmuted into a lance of agony that bit deep into his skin. His spear fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, and he could feel blood welling up under his armor. The elf spun away, finding himself face to face with another mercenary. The weapon, which he’d inadvertently wretched out of the enemy’s grasp, was a small but heavy battle ax. The head was no more than four inches tall, but the lead weighted handle gave it power that belied it’s small size. It had punched easily through Belial’s armor and chain mail, to embed itself in the arm underneath.
The mercenary pulled a second ax from his belt. No doubt his first blow had been to disarm and disable Belial’s dominant hand; this one would be aimed to kill.
As he brought his arms back to deliver the blow, however, Belial grabbed the hilt of his sword with his left hand and yanked it out of the sheath. The pommel struck the enemy knight directly in the throat, and despite his armor he gagged from the impact. Taking advantage of the split second of distraction, Belial aimed a second blow at the man’s head, leaving a deep dent in the mercenary’s helmet. The other man staggered back, and when Belial struck him a third time he fell.
Panting hard, the knight kicked the visor of the mercenary’s helmet back, and drove the sword down- aiming with the blade this time. He had to be sure of it.
He turned, the adrenaline making him momentarily oblivious to the ax still embedded in his arm. With blood roaring in his ears he searched for his next opponent, but to his surprise he found there was none. A few seconds later, his ability to perceive sound returned and he realized why; a horn in the distance was signalling a retreat. The Mercenaries had realized their plan was a failure, and they were leaving. They already had human prizes from Kolanth, they didn’t need to spend lives pointlessly trying to get the elves when they were well obviously still well defended.
Almost instinctively Belial took a few steps after them, but at that moment the pain in his arm really hit him, and he realized how stupid an idea that was. He knew better than to try and pull the ax head out- it would help slow the loss of blood after all- but the injury was still a very bad one. He’d lose the use of his arm permanently if it wasn’t seen to.
“Form up!” the squad leader called. “Everyone gather ‘round me, I need to inventory our injuries. Then we’ll reunite with the other squads and hear the reports of their skirmishes elsewhere in the forest.”
Belial turned to obey, but as he took a step towards the commander black spots exploded in his vision. He realized dimly that even though he’d left the blade in place, he must have lost a lot more blood then he realized after all. A quick glance at his arm confirmed this; crimson rivers were flowing from every crack and crevice in the metal. He was determined to power through it, but the next step he took was his last. He was dimly aware of his fellows crying out in alarm as he fell forwards, before blackness consumed his mind.
* * * * *
When Belial’s consciousness returned, the first thing he was aware of was singing. He opened his eyes, turning his head to see that he was back in the infirmary. The singing was coming from Morgaine, who was still sitting on the cot where she’d been when he saw her last. Only now instead of sitting on that cot with her, he was lying on an adjacent one.
He vaguely realized the song she was singing was some sort of hymn. He’d never heard her sing, except when she was drunk, which wasn’t so much singing as shouting melodically. She was completely sober now, and as he let her voice wash over him he was surprised by how pretty it was. The young woman wasn’t going to win any prizes for her singing, but it was still nice to listen to.
“I didn’t know you could sing,” he remarked when she reached the end of her song, startling her. His own voice was harsh and gravelly, and edged with weariness from the blood loss and general exertion. Morgaine looked down at him with a smile.
“I used to be in the church choir, back home in Cypress Springs. But that was something I did when I was a child, and I didn’t want to keep doing it in Kolanth where I was trying to take on a new identity as an adult.”
He closed his eyes again. “You should sing more often, even if you’re not in a choir. It’s nice.”
She chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Her voice became more serious as she added, “It’s close to midnight now. You’ve been out a long while. The healers fixed the worst of the damage to your arm, but they didn’t have the energy to repair it all the way with s-so many others h-hurt.”
The stammer that entered her voice was not missed by Belial, and he turned to her again, opening his eyes. “What’s the matter, love?”
“I… I was helping the healers, you know holding wounds shut and whatnot. But after an hour there was so much blood all over my hands, and my clothes. Th-there was just so much blood. I went outside, and, and…”
He reached a hand towards her, and she caught it with her own. Now that he looked, he could see her dress was splattered with crimson. “Did you throw up?” he asked gently. When she looked at him with surprise, he smiled back. “It’s alright; most people do, the first time. I know I did. Don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of.”
She adjusted her hand so that her fingers twined in his. “I just feel so helpless. I was too late to save Kolanth, I’m not strong enough to fight with you, and I can’t even do this to help you.”
“Morgaine, you’ve already done more than enough,” he said, pulling at her hand gently so that she would look at him. “You warned us of what was coming, and averted a potential disaster for my people. We owe you a very great debt for that, and it will be repaid. Nid’aigle will not abandon our friends from Kolanth, I swear it.”
She shook her head, still not looking convinced. But instead of arguing further, she leaned forwards so that her head was resting on their joined hands, and sang. |
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Post by Shinko on Aug 31, 2014 17:51:12 GMT -5
Here's part three; one part left to go! To Be Strong: Part ThreeBelial stared at Morgaine, as if unsure of what he’d just heard. “You… you want to come with us?”
Morgaine nodded, her hands clenching on her dress. It was the same dress she’d arrived at Nid’aigle in the night before, torn and tattered from her misadventures and drenched in now brown blood from her help in the infirmary. Her short height meant none of the relatively tall elves had anything close to small enough to fit, at least not immediately onhand.
The two of them were still at the command post for the knights of Nid’aigle, though no longer in the infirmary. Morgaine had pulled Belial aside into a small room with a huge map of Corvus pinned to the wall, which was normally used for planning strategy. Presently it was empty, and which meant it was perfect for a private conversation.
Unfortunately, the human woman could tell from Belial’s expression that this conversation was not going to go at all perfectly.
“What would you even do, Morgaine? You’re not a warrior, you’re a locksmith. This is going to be incredibly dangerous, even for those of us who are experienced and trained to handle it.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I was hoping you might help me think of something. I just don’t want to sit around wringing my hands again. The villagers are depending on me, and I want to contribute to their rescue.”
“You already have, love. You brought word of what happened to us, in spite of a painful injury that most would not have been able to walk for ten minutes on, let alone the three hours you managed. You gave us the crucial knowledge that we needed to work out that the attack on Kolanth was just a diversion. You don’t have to be a superhero to make a difference.”
“But that’s not enough!” she insisted.
The elf sighed, leaning against the wall. “And why not?”
Morgaine took a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts in a way that she could explain coherently. “Once before, you told me that you wanted us to be equals. I want us to be equals too- but right now we aren’t. You keep going off on these dangerous missions, risking your life for Kyth. Meanwhile I just sit around at home making locks and praying to Woo that you’ll come back safely. I just feel so completely powerless, it’s driving me insane.”
Belial frowned, shifting uncomfortably at the reference to their previous argument. “Morgaine, that is taking what I said way, way out of context and you know it. I meant that I wanted us to be intellectual and social equals. I never meant that I wanted you to stand on the battlefield and risk your life as I do mine.”
“Why not?” she demanded, bristling. “Do you think I’m not capable?”
“Right now, I know you’re not capable,” he answered flatly. “War is not a game. I trained in combat, strategy, diplomacy, field triage and wilderness survival for three years as a page before I was allowed to go anywhere near a battlefield. Even then I was still a squire for another five years before I was knighted.”
“Belial, I know I can’t help you fight,” Morgaine insisted. “I’m not asking to help fight. I just want to be useful somehow. You know that if I have nothing to do with myself I get into trouble, that’s why everyone back home thought I was such a nuisance. Usually when you’re gone I try to find things to distract myself with, but I have nothing to do here. I just keep thinking about all the things that could happen and-”
“The answer is no,” Belial interrupted. “Please listen to me, because this is important; you have done enough. More than enough.”
“No I haven’t!” she snapped. “Maybe you think so, but it’s killing me having to sit around here and just wait!”
The elf scowled. “And what would you even do? What do you think you could contribute to the rescue effort?”
“I already said I don’t know! I admitted I have no experience with this, and that’s why I came to you!” Morgaine clenched her fists, looking down at the ground. “You know what goes on in these situations. I’m sure you can think of something I could help with. Cleaning up the camp maybe, or looking after the horses. Please, Belial, help me.”
“I can’t, Morgaine, don’t ask this of me. I love you, and the last thing I want is to put you in harm’s way,” Belial said, desperation edging into his voice.
“Oh, so this is about how you can’t stand the thought of me being in danger then?” the woman asked snidely. “You want to hover and protect me, like a pretty princess dressed in white high up in a tower? This isn’t a fairy tale and I’m not your damsel in distress, Belial.”
The elf jerked back, his teeth clenching. “You’re right, it’s not a fairy tale. Shall I outline for you then exactly what it is you’re asking for? What chasing down slavers on the run is like? They will have all the villagers packed together into wagons, as tightly as they can fit, standing to make even more room. No one will be permitted to sit, for there is no room to sit, and they will be kept like that all hours, day and night. They will receive only scant rations of food and water, because stopping to let them eat or drink means more potential to get caught. Along the way some will die, either from wounds they received during the initial battle or mistreatment on the road. The corpses will be abandoned in a ditch off the road, where they are less likely to be found by authorities, and left there to rot.”
Morgaine’s face paled, but Belial was not finished. “When we finally catch up to them, we can’t just attack immediately. They will see us coming, and use the villagers as hostages to keep us at bay. Instead we must pick them off, a few at a time, making it seem to happen accidentally. Once we have whittled down their numbers we can attack them- and all of them must be killed. No quarter. All of our resources will go to keeping the captives alive on the trip back, so we simply cannot afford to take any prisoners. It will be a bloodbath.”
The young woman was quivering now, but she set her chin stubbornly. “I can handle-”
“No, you can’t!” he shouted, his temper visibly snapping. “You can’t even face a room full of injuries without losing it, you have no place on a battlefield! If you come you will make yourself into a nuisance that is in the way at best, and a deadly liability that we must risk ourselves to protect at worst! Is that what you want, Morgaine? Are you so thrice-cursed set on learning the hard way how completely helpless you’d be that you want us to die focusing on your safety when we should be concentrating on our own?”
It was obvious from the way his expression morphed from anger to horror almost as soon as he’d spoken that Belial knew he’d gone too far. But it was too late; those blunt, cruel words couldn’t possibly be unsaid now. Morgaine jerked backwards from her friend, and squeezed her eyes shut against hot tears of anger and hurt. Before the elf could say anything, she turned and fled the room.
* * * * *
Try as he might, Belial couldn’t find Morgaine before the commander found him with orders that they were to move out in thirty minutes. That meant he needed to suit up, which would take at least twenty minutes on it’s own, giving him no time to keep searching- let alone the time he’d need to apologize for his monumental blunder.
How could he have possibly said something like that? He, who knew better than anyone her strength of spirit, how smart she was, the depths of her compassion… What kind of selfish monster was he that he’d guilt her by implying she wanted to get others killed?
So caught up was Belial in his own self-flagellating that he barely registered the speech Commander Anri gave once the knights had gathered at the edge of the city. When they moved out, it was because Warblade followed the other horses in the line automatically- Belial was too wrapped in misery to give him the order to move. It wasn't until an hour later when they reached Kolanth that Belial was able to drag himself back into the real world, and what he saw there just made the elf feel even worse.
The village was deathly silent. Doors hung off their hinges, livestock animals that had escaped from broken paddocks milled about aimlessly, and every so often he caught sight of the corpse of a villager who’d simply proved too combatative to be worth capture.
Belial knew these people. He’d watched most of them grow up in Kolanth since they were children- he’d watched their parents and grandparents grow up in the village as well. And here they were, left in the street for scavengers…
“Squad five, burial detail,” Commander Anri called back along the line. “And catch any loose animals you can find and secure them- when we get the villagers back they’ll need all the viable resources they have to rebuild.”
The squad she had named broke off from the remainder of the company to obey, but it was not Belial’s squad so he rode on with the rest. However, barely another two hours passed before they found the first signs that the Courdonian abuses were taking their toll on the Kythian captives. A sentry in the woods approached the main force, his grim expression telling them before he opened his mouth that the news was bad.
“There’s a body in the woods,” he said. “One of the villagers, looks like. He has a stab wound from a knife on his shoulder, and another on his torso. It looks as if he survived the initial raid upon the village, but died of blood loss on the road. The Courdonians left him for the carrion birds.”
Despite the fact that Belial had known this would happen, and warned Morgaine specifically that it would, his mouth tightened when he heard the sentry’s report. Anri glanced around, and spotted Belial.
“Braham, you know the villagers in Kolanth- go with the sentry and see if you can confirm the identity of this unfortunate. We haven’t the time to see to him properly, but at least we can find out who it is and pay respects to sooth his spirit and help him pass on in peace.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Belial replied automatically, though he wished she had not asked it of him. The last thing he wanted just then was to see more familiar corpses.
When he caught sight of the motionless form through the trees, for just a moment he was completely unable to breath; he recognized the man alright. It was Brennan Smithson, the locksmith.
He covered his face, shaking his head bitterly. Now he was even more glad Morgaine wasn’t there; he didn’t want her to remember her master this way, but as she had last seen him, stubbornly ordering her around. But it was also another reason for her to feel guilty for not reaching the elves sooner, and she’d probably hate Belial even more now for stopping her from doing anything that might have somehow helped. A moot anger, because Smithson had no doubt already been dead by sometime the night before, but he wouldn’t in the least blame her for it.
Speaking softly in Kythian, the language Smithson had spoken in life, Belial murmured, “Lord Woo, You are always faithful and quick to show mercy. Master Smithson was violently taken from us. Come swiftly to his aid, have mercy on him, and comfort his family and friends by the power and protection of your feathers. Guide our feet as we seek those who committed this act, and let justice be done by this man’s soul. Amen.”
He turned back to the sentry with a sigh. “Let’s catch back up to the others.”
Belial slipped back into the column of elven knights wordlessly, absorbed by his thoughts. It wasn’t until he heard a soft cough that he realized someone had come up beside him. Looking up, he saw Anri’s first Lieutenant, Sir Gavin Monfort. Gavin was a very well respected elf, and believed to be the oldest of any of the knights of Nid’aigle- though he never told anyone exactly how old he was. He was also a very kind man, and made it a point to know all the elves in the company on at least a semi-personal level. He was one of the few who had known just how badly Belial had taken having to kill people, and done his best to comfort the younger elf when Belial was still a squire.
“Ah, forgive me Sir Gavin, I was woolgathering,” Belial said apologetically.
“It looked a great deal more like brooding to my eyes,” the older knight remarked. “You’ve been very melancholy since we left- worried about the villagers?”
Belial winced. “Of course I am, but that’s not really…”
“Something to do with the young woman who warned us about the Courdonians, then?”
Belial jerked in surprise, looking up at Gavin with astonishment at this rather on-the-mark guess. The older elf chuckled. “Don’t look so shocked Sir Braham. When one lives for a very long time, they become familiar with certain hallmark signs. And you two were not exactly being subtle about how very affectionate you are towards each other yesterday. I can see why you would care for her- to make it all the way from Kolanth to Nid’aigle on foot to warn us about the Courdonians, with a badly sprained ankle, she must have a great deal of strength and empathy.”
The younger elf flushed a bit, then looked away. “We had an argument this morning. She wanted to come along, because she felt like she was useless and had somehow failed her people by not getting to us in time for us to save them.”
“And you told her that she could not; she would serve no one in following behind us, not even herself. She would only become frustrated with her inability to provide any real assistance.” Gavin shrugged. “That is hardly the first time such has happened. It can’t be helped really; if someone cares for you, of course they want to help you when you are putting your life in danger. Every knight with a beloved has that argument at some point.”
“I know that, but it’s not the main problem,” Belial said, fiddling with his horse’s reins. “She was being stubborn, and I.. I lost my temper. It lead me to say some things that were unnecessarily cruel.”
Gavin raised an eyebrow, slowing his horse so that the other knights could move ahead of them. Belial slowed as well, knowing that he was being asked to continue. The young knight looked away, frustration and guilt welling up in his chest again. Once they were out of earshot of the others, he said softly, “I told her, in detail, what hunting slavers is like. And when she still wouldn't back down I said that… that she would be a nuisance, and a liability. And I accused her of trying to get knights killed in her defense to satisfy her own conscience.”
The older knight looked shocked; no doubt he was surprised to hear that the normally easygoing Belial would say something so blunt and callous. Belial wanted to hit something to vent his frustration, but there was nothing in front of him except Warblade’s neck. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I never get this angry, and I love her, so why is she so good at pushing my limits? How can the one I care for more than anyone else also be the person who drives me the most insane?”
“You’re angry because you want to protect her,” Gavin replied gently, putting a hand on Belial’s should. “And she obviously does not want to be protected.”
“But she’s wrong about this!” Belial insisted. “She can’t fight, she would just get hurt!”
“Of course, but that doesn't matter to her. What does matter is that her friends and loved ones are in danger, and she has no outlet for that. She’s not thinking with ration, she’s thinking with passion. You can’t try to argue passion with ration, it will never work.”
Gavin sighed. “ Braham, it’s clear to me that you are both strong willed and care for each other deeply. But you have yet to learn the limits of control. A relationship works on the basis of compromise- not just compromise on when to take the next step in physical intimacy or who does what chore around the house. Sometimes you will be faced with a situation where you both feel so strongly about an issue that neither of you is willing to just back down and accept the other’s will. So instead of forcing one to break, which is a controlling, domineering relationship and not a loving one, both of you have to bend.”
The way Gavin spoke- of a relationship that was based on control and domination- reminded Belial horribly of the fear that Morgaine had expressed when they’d had their argument the year prior. She’d brought it up too, he remembered, reminding him of his promise back then that they would be equals. He realized upon reflection that Morgaine had been trying to compromise, asking for his input on the issue of how she could be of help because she knew she was out of her depth. She had only become angry and stubborn when he refused to listen.
“Oh, Woo, I am such an idiot.” He clenched hard on Warblade’s reigns, looking up into the trees despairingly as he realized how completely he had betrayed Morgaine’s trust. “I wouldn’t blame her if she decided never to have anything to do with me again.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Braham,” Sir Gavin advised, giving him a light punch on the arm. “Everyone makes mistakes, and every relationship is going to have rough patches. If you’re thinking you should never have any arguments with the woman, you’re setting your expectations far too high. But it all comes back to compromise- what’ll determine if you two last in the long run is if, once you’ve both separated for a while and cooled off, you can come back together and hash through the disagreement.”
When Belial thought back to the hurt and betrayal in Morgaine’s eyes, he wasn’t so convinced they could “hash out” this particular disagreement. And what happened if he kept losing his temper with her? He’d never considered himself a stubborn or angry person, but he and Morgaine spent so much time together that she was starting to find a side to his personality that even he hadn’t known existed.
“I don’t know, sir. I just don’t know.” |
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Post by Shinko on Sept 10, 2014 16:47:57 GMT -5
This post originally updated for
Prison Of the Mind
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Post by Shinko on Sept 19, 2014 13:06:41 GMT -5
Originally updated for -
Evil
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Post by Shinko on Oct 7, 2014 13:49:59 GMT -5
This post originally updated for
Old Grievances
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Post by Shinko on Oct 9, 2014 16:41:01 GMT -5
Tagging Celestial for the inclusion of her character and her help in writing~ This post originally updated for To Whom You Belong |
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Post by Shinko on Oct 17, 2014 19:05:21 GMT -5
Okay, so last time I posted a fic set in Countryswap AU, where all of the characters are Courdonian and Sieg is Alain's slave. This time, I'm posting the first of what will probably be several stories that are an AU of countryswap AU. Celestial and I have been developing it together- basically, by unknown means Courdonian Sieg gets transported to canon Bern and meets the canon Stallionbros. What would happen?This thread originally updated for Culture Shock
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Post by Shinko on Oct 23, 2014 16:30:54 GMT -5
This thread originally updated for
Promise
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