Post by Pixie on Jan 14, 2015 17:04:21 GMT -5
I've been accumulating a decent amount of stories and collabs, so I decided it was time to make a thread for my writing. I really enjoy collaborative writing, so I have many stories that have been written with some awesome members of our forum. This is will probably get cluttered up with Medieval fics that don't it in other threads. The contents of this thread will range from saccharine adorableness to the grimdark disturbing, so be prepared for anything!
This first story is a bittersweet treat from Medieval, which Lizica wrote with me. It's canon and takes place several decades after the main rp. I am excited to share this with you!
The King and The Heroine
This first story is a bittersweet treat from Medieval, which Lizica wrote with me. It's canon and takes place several decades after the main rp. I am excited to share this with you!
The King and The Heroine
At first he couldn’t tell if it was dust, or fog. He’d awoken in a haze of white, disorienting white, and he rubbed his forehead absently, trying to piece together what to do next.
It felt very empty. And yet, it also felt very warm, somehow reassuring--as if, in spite of everyone he had just left behind, in spite of everything newly lost, this was merely a new step, another realm to explore and learn to know better. It wasn’t an end. It didn’t feel like it.
It just felt confusing, was all.
He felt a sharp pang of regret; he hoped everyone back home would be alright.
Then he recentered himself: He had faith in them. They were strong, and caring, and full of life. They would be alright.
And with that thought in mind, Aldrich Finnegan, the late King Galateo Owl, stumbled forward through the fog, trying to find something more solid, something to steady him. But it seemed unlikely to find something as sturdy as rocky ground when--
He nearly tripped over what did, in fact, appear to be a rock at his feet, and he plummeted forward, expecting some kind of pain and the usual old soreness when he hit the ground--but he was instead greeted by a light breeze, by something that tickled like grass. The foggy dust parted, giving way to a clear vista of a glade, both sunny and cloudy, both warm and cool, studded with stones and great, winding trees. It felt, in spite of all of Aldrich’s uncertainties, like a place he could rest in.
But surely he couldn’t be the only person--(soul?)--here? He stood and made his way through the glade, looking up and around at the trees and sky in wonderment.
Meanwhile, a young woman in a pale pink dress appeared from behind a nearby tree. Her features were youthful and soft, contrasting to her cloud-white hair, and the hood from her white cape hung down despite the strong light. The girl’s head was bowed over the wrinkled parchment scroll she was absorbed with reading, but her feet moved swiftly along. She clearly was not paying any mind to her immediate surroundings, but it still came as a shock to her when she felt the sensation of phasing through something that felt suspiciously like a person--a person who yelped in surprise. She, too, cried out, dropped the scroll, picked up the scroll, and turned around to face the man. The girl placed the scroll into a sheath that had contained an heirloom sword in life, and looked at him sheepishly. She really had to watch where she was going.She chimed, “ Sorry, Mister! I didn’t mean to do that,” and then her voice turned quieter. “I know you from somewhere,” she stated matter-of-factly. She had realized while looking at him that he seemed familiar, though older and more worn than she remembered.
The man studied her for a long moment, his eyes rather wide, but then something seemed to spark in his memory, and his whole face lit up.
“Ilaria?” he mustered at length. “The--the pale protector?”
Ilaria giggled lightly, nodding her head once she realized who was standing there before her. There was only one person who had called her that- Aldrich, the friendly, unlucky man who had a bunch of sculptures that were alive, and who needed a bodyguard, a long time back when she was still alive. There wasn’t a trace of sadness in her mind. Her own death had faded to the background, while the wounds vanished from her ghostly form, and it didn’t occur fully to her that he had to have died to be there now.
“Yes, I’m Ilaria. Aldrich, right? It’s good to see you again. How were the years?” she said cordially, her silver-blue eyes going wide with curiosity and excitement as his had a moment earlier. She didn’t leave him a window for response, and instead took a few fast steps closer to him and threw her arms outward and around him for a corporeal hug.
“It’s wonderful to see you again,” Aldrich began, nearly laughing at the embrace but returning it fondly. Again this motion made him ache for the people he’d just left behind. Goodness, though--it was good to meet Ilaria here, doing so well. How were the years? ....Aldrich pondered this question.
Where on earth did he even begin?
“It’s been--” Aldrich paused, and smiled abashedly at Ilaria in amazement. “It’s been quite a whirlwind.
“Ah, I--I don’t think you knew,” he suddenly realized. The embrace separated, and Aldrich motioned the young woman to sit down in the grass, as he did so himself. “I don’t think you knew--and to be honest, I didn’t know for a while, either--I--Did you know I was--...” He started over. “I lost my mother when I was very small--She was the queen.”
“Huh.”
Many things had never stopped confusing Ilaria, but the degree of confusion she was feeling at that moment was spectacular. It wasn’t someone failing to make her understand what exactly magic was for the dozenth time, it was something entirely out of the normal plane of experience. How could this sculptor guy be a child of the queen? Ilaria didn’t remember any of his parents being around when she visited him at his studio, but she hadn’t even daydreamed that she had been protecting some lost royal. “You’re a prince?” she finally inquired, once she stopped being flabbergasted enough to manage the question.
Aldrich smiled apologetically. “The Shadows reunited me with my mother, and I--I became king. Some people call me Galateo Owl instead, but--for some, I’ll always be Aldrich.” Seeing Ilaria’s astonishment, he paused and attempted to lighten the weight of the revelation, adding, “My sculptures have had quite a lot of adventures roaming about the Raven’s Keep. I think you would have enjoyed seeing them.”
“The Shadows!” Ilaria exclaimed, “I never thought you a rebel. Or living in the Keep.”
What Ilaria had last known of the Shadows in life was their disruption at the fatal coronation. Those she met afterwards had mixed opinions on them. The younger and poorer they were, the more they looked at the Shadows as heros. Some of the old nobles didn’t like them, or their methods, or what they stood for, but she didn’t know if she should listen to them or not. A lot of people had different ways of seeing the world and Ilaria had discovered that in her recent adventures. Galateo was a name she had heard around from all these people, but it felt so odd trying to match it up with the blur of Aldrich’s face. She was glad to hear the sculptures were still having their fun. They were funny and cool, and she remembered them from her short stint bodyguarding Aldrich.
“I liked your sculptures,” Ilaria said with a grin. “You’ll have to tell me some time about what they’ve done- and what you’ve done! What was it like as a king?”
Aldrich was grinning, but he paused thoughtfully at this question, scratching his beard. “...Stressful? Exhilarating? Weighty? Crazy? ...Busy,” he said. “There’s always something more you want to help with, some things you’re helpless to aid, some things best left alone. There are so many voices in the country you would think they would form a discordant choir, but every once in a rare while they’ll almost strike a sweet note in unison. And you have to help be the conductor through all of it, listening and trying to keep everyone up to a tempo.”
He squinted off in the distance. “But it wasn’t all business. Very far from it. I--I got married and--and I became a father,” he began, turning back to Ilaria, his whole face brightening up again, yet simultaneously turning a little bereft, as if looking at some memory just behind her.
“...I wish you could have met my family,” he said at length. “And I wish you could have seen the sculptures in the Keep, too. I’m sure they could have used some guarding here and there. They...they were so unreasonable, always posing as statues and scaring visitors, sneaking into castle rooms, accidentally knocking candles off the chandeliers and setting things on fire, leaving scuff marks on the rafters and the archways, interrupting meetings, giving bruises and rides to the kids when they were little, and--”
Aldrich suddenly realized that he was shivering a little from simultaneously wanting to laugh and to cry.
“Ah ‘Woo,” he said at last, thickly, looking apologetically at Ilaria. “I’m sorry...I miss them all already.”
“Missing is okay,” Ilaria declared, as she saw the distress on his face and gave him another hug. Thoughts began to swarm her with the force and passion of a hurricane wave, as her mind returned to the life she had lost for the first time in quite awhile. She closed her eyes and took on a serene expression. “There was this woman I daydreamed about marrying once upon a time. She was an elf- very beautiful and smart and kind and strong and brave,” Her eyes fluttered back open when she realized where the story was going, “I loved her. Her name was Kaldora and she was my best friend.”
“She didn’t want to be my girlfriend because she was actually a dragon, but we were very close and we had great times together. I’ve been really busy here too- I’m not managing a kingdom like you did, but I’m busy with these heroic quests. I didn’t forget about her- I never will,and I’ve always figured she’s been up to grand things without me, since she’s strong. Maybe you’ve seen her? When she’s an elf, she had purple skin with pretty markings by her eyes, and her hair was mostly white-ish. She’s gold and a bit spiky as a dragon. I miss my Kali a lot now that I think of it… have you seen her?”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend more time with her,” said Aldrich, still trying to make sense of what Ilaria had just told him. He paused, straining his memory very hard to try to picture an elf--dragon?--of this description--but there were so many faces, so many that didn’t match.
“I--I’m sorry, I don’t know if I ever met your friend,” he managed finally. “I’ve met a lot of elves, but no one quite like that. And while there was that incident with some irreverent dragons that one autumn, I’m pretty sure they were blue. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. I’m sure your friend misses you terribly, too.”
Ilaria didn’t really know what she had been expecting. She had wished that Kaldora would be around and faring well, but not even Ilaria’s own parents had mentioned seeing her. Aldrich, another lost friend, was giving her a reminder of the limited time she had spent with her beloved. Her heart ached to imagine the girl she had left behind feeling the same sort of void.
“I don’t want her missing me, exactly. It’s not that I want her to forget me; it’s hard to explain.” she said quietly, “Her friendship meant the world to me, but she’s going to live for centuries and I don’t want to make her miserable because of the few months we knew each other. I want her to be happy even if I won’t be with her.” She looked at Aldrich, who managed a sad, sympathetic smile as he listened.
“Those months were wonderful,” she went on. “We made stories together, and talked about all sorts of stuff, and I adored every word of hers. We hugged a lot, danced a bit, and I got her into a few of the dresses I made. She looked like a princess. We played with her kitten together, the one that followed her around all the time, and laughed until both our lungs hurt. Days and nights like that were when I was the most, well, alive. It’s not bad here, but..” The tears began to trickle from Ilaria’s eyes.
Now it was Aldrich’s turn to give Ilaria a light hug. “It’s hard to lose someone,” he said gently. “But you can still remember and treasure those good times. They’re...they’re important. And it sounds like you were both very close, even if you were together for only a precious short time.”
“We were together until the very, very end. It was torture that Kali couldn’t get to me at first, after he ran me through and I was dying, but when she was able to move again, she came close to me and held me in her arms. She kept talking to me, saying I was a hero and that I was going to be okay. It was good to have her there. My beloved was the very last thing I saw. She was the last thing I felt, other than all the pain. It was agony. The wound was very big and it hurt more than anything I’ve ever known, but she held me close. She was warm and soft, comforting, even though I felt her sobbing. Kali tried everything in her power to save me, but it just didn’t take. Blood gets everywhere but where it needs to be with a wound like that, you know. She sang to me, bound the wound, used medicine to try to make it hurt less, everything. I clung to her voice and the sight of her face but there wasn’t anything she could do. He wouldn’t hurt any more people, but it was too late for me.”
Her appearance had started to take a ghastly transformation as she began to recount her death, a visceral hole blooming outwards from her stomach like a morbid rose and bloodying her dress. Her shoulder and her dress were torn, too, reflecting her state on the last day of her life. She winced, moving her hands to shield her fatal wound from his view. It had been a long time since she felt it there, and she didn’t want to distress him by letting him see it, if he hadn’t already.
“No, not this. It hurts. P-please don’t look. You don’t want to look,” Ilaria whimpered, turning away from Aldrich.
Lulled into sadness by her account, Aldrich had jolted at first when he saw what was happening at her stomach, and for a moment he didn’t know what to do. But then he swallowed and held Ilaria’s shoulder, trying to turn her back.
“W-wait, you have to look at wounds sometimes. Don’t worry about me, what can I do? Ilaria, can I do anything to help? I don’t know how this--Let me help you. C-can I help?”
Ilaria saw him look distraught, but attempt to draw her back to him. She was correct about distressing him over her fatal wounds as she feared it would. The girl spun back to face him, removing her hands from her stomach and clasping them together, instead, “It’s a nasty hole that’s been gone for a long time before this. I wish you could help but you can’t really fix it. It’s from me thinking- and feeling. It’s that my death was bad but it could have been much worse. It could have been him killing Kali in front of me. He nearly did. He was about to kill her. It’s me thinking about the man who murdered me. They say third time’s a charm, and they are right in this case. The man I killed.” grimly, with a twisted echo of a smile, “Ancel. I hate to say that name. Well, he’s surely burning in the ‘Pit now! I made sure of it.”
Aldrich flinched with a grimace, trying to keep up. “This was at the Bloody Coronation?” he said. “Was it that day? Third time’s the--This man wasn’t a Courdonian soldier? Why would he have done this? Why would he have had any business in trying to kill you and your friend that you had to defend yourself in such a way?”
“Kali said he was Courdonian, but he wasn’t really a soldier. He was a monster of his own kind. His hair and eyes were red like blood, and his soul was rotted as the ‘Pit. He killed her family before she came to Kyth and a lot of other people too. He was a serial murderer with his victims notched off on his crossbow. About a hundred, I remember… and I was his last one,” Ilaria explained. “I think I told you ages ago that someone had tried to murder me as being a vampire and got put in the stocks. That was him. The next time I saw him he said that he wanted me to be his bride. He couldn’t have really been in love, since he wanted me dead. No matter what, it was really creepy. He told me he’d kill me and Kali if I didn’t surrender myself to him. I couldn’t take that, so I charged him, and we fought with our swords for awhile. He fled to a turret on a gryphon and we flew after him, but he shot her down before we could land and we plummeted onto that tower really, really hard. He stuck me when I was recovering from the fall and he was going to kill her too, if I didn’t get him. That’s what happened to my sword. His reign of terror ended that day, but I got taken away from her...”
For a moment Aldrich felt something twinge and flare in his own stomach: anger. He had dimly recalled someone similar to that description once, long ago, in a tavern, flailing a sword at Babewyn, pontificating in drunken blatherings about demons. He had seen this person. Aldrich had had no idea--this man had even--how many had he already--how dare the man have even considered Ilaria as--what sort of twisted concept of love and rejection and then violence--and then--
But Ilaria still looked shaky with fury, out of breath from relaying the story of her death in a cascade of emotion; she looked full of fire and defiance at the memories of her attacker, yet acutely distressed and forlorn at everything torn away from her.
Aldrich let out a breath and looked Ilaria in the eye. “I’m sorry that I asked you to explain. ...I didn’t realize. I was at the Bloody Coronation that day, and I...I wish I could have been there with you to help, somehow. You were noble to have defended your friend, but I’m so sorry all of that happened like it did.”
A swirling breeze from down the glade ruffled the grass at their feet. Aldrich glanced away from Ilaria for a moment, down the pasture, at rustling trees and gleaming rocks.
He peered back at her inquiringly, with her wound and her pained face, still wondering what he could do to help, knowing there wasn’t anything. “Emery and I sculpted a memorial for you and for people like you who died that day, to help us all remember,” he said finally, softly.
“My parents told me about the memorial. That was sweet of you and Emery,” she murmured, fiddling with her sheath.
“Thank you for telling me what happened that day--but I’m sorry that I made you relive the memories,” said Aldrich. “It sounds like you’ve done a lot here, though? Can--can you tell me about that? You mentioned doing some kind of heroic quests? Do you get to travel and help people here, like you did for people in Medieville?”
The flow of Ilaria’s tears began to slow as the conversation turned to a less painful topic.
“I actually didn't get to do much heroics during my time in Medieville, that freedom was only the last couple years. I’m very free here and I have been taking on lots of missions. Mostly, I’m a messenger or a friend. I travel around this vast area and help reunite people. Lovers, friends, family divided by time. There are a lot of interesting stories they tell me and I find myself in all sorts of places. That scroll I was looking at before I bumped into you has a bunch of descriptions on it, that I’m looking for folks by. Knowing to write comes in handy for that. Many here can’t. I try to comfort new arrivals, too. Usually, it's doesn’t turn like this…” Ilaria replied solemnly, glancing again at the hole in her belly that had begun to fade away again, but not completely. She looked back at Aldrich the moment she became conscious of what she had shifted her attention back to.
“I’ve done a crummy job welcoming you here,” she sighed.
“No, no,” said Aldrich. “Don’t be silly, I’m very glad that you were the one to have met and welcomed me here, of all the people I could have run into. You’ve been missed, but your work here sounds wonderful.”
“Aldrich, you are really kind. I didn’t want you to see... that, though, and I’m supposed to be the one making you feel more at ease. On that, would there be anyone you lost who you’d want help finding?” Ilaria offered warmly, “I could take another quest, easily.”
An odd mixture of surprise and confusion crossed Aldrich’s face before his eyes widened with the understanding of this offer. “R-really?” he said brightly, nervously. “Anyone I--... Would you know where I could look to find my mother? Queen Maia? Or my--my adoptive father? His name was Samuel. Or any of the old royal family, I don’t know, I never got to meet them properly, I… Or, have--have you seen any of my other sculptures here? Not--not the ones you met, but ones that fled the studio after I brought them to life but never came back, I don’t know if they all could have--...Have you ever seen any of them here? I worry about what--Would they have come here? Would--” Aldrich paused for a moment to swallow and to catch his breath. “S-sorry,” he said quickly. “That’s quite a lot. Carina and Babewyn always tell me I’m a chronic worrier. One thing at a time?”
“I can help you find all of them. Not all of yours in one go, but I always look for a few at once. All types have loved ones and they show up in odd places at times. There's been big history-type people and regular ones I’ve talked to. I’ve seen sculptures run across here wild, like they were trying to chase after the sunset! They’ll be here. I’d just need to know what they look like- or what they feel like.” She pressed a pale fist over her heart, and a small remnant of shakiness was all that stayed as the wounds had fully faded once more, “That’s a good way to find folks here. Who do you want to find first? Parents or sculptures or royals? How did they make you feel?”
“Maybe we can start with parents?” Aldrich suggested as they made their way across the grassy glade together, looking back around and then ahead at the horizon. “If the sculptures are anything like the ones I know, they’ll probably show up when I’m not expecting them. ...Oh ‘Woo, I’m glad they can make it here. Worried, that’s how they make me feel. ...Also excited, too, really. And same for my parents, though in a different way. They make me feel excited to do something, excited to share something with them, yet worried I might make a mistake or disappoint them. Also sadness at being apart for too long, like homesickness, and they feel like home, all at once. Kind of like here, sort of. Home and homesickness, confusion but sureness.” Aldrich paused, letting his gaze rove around the glade and then back to his friend. “Thank you, Ilaria. For offering. I’d also love to see places that you enjoy visiting, as well.”
“That’s a good start. I’m really glad to help. By what you said, I should be able to track them just fine.” Ilaria paused to shut her eyes, her expression lined with concentration, and breathed deeply for a spell. When she opened her eyes again, they were more brightly illuminated, seemingly from within, and she took back to walking.
“The closest is near where I sensed that blonde girl’s father was, or one of the lost kittens that old lord was looking- this way about, in short. As for places I like… well my parents are on the way, if you want to say ‘hello’ in person to them. That letter you sent meant a lot to them and they’d be so happy to meet a king! There’s also this beautiful waterfall that’s good for sitting by, but it’s a detour. There’s a lot of pretty places, actually. It’s good here.”
Aldrich smiled. “That sounds wonderful, thank you. And I’d love the chance to meet your parents, as well.”
They strode off across the glade and beyond, chatting and occasionally laughing, sometimes even crying or even gasping--and it did feel that at the end of one road led another, perhaps to lost pieces refound and mended with the old.
And so the grand pair walked on--the king and the heroine--yet, to an unfamiliar onlooker, the two appeared simply as two very old friends, reunited at last.
It felt very empty. And yet, it also felt very warm, somehow reassuring--as if, in spite of everyone he had just left behind, in spite of everything newly lost, this was merely a new step, another realm to explore and learn to know better. It wasn’t an end. It didn’t feel like it.
It just felt confusing, was all.
He felt a sharp pang of regret; he hoped everyone back home would be alright.
Then he recentered himself: He had faith in them. They were strong, and caring, and full of life. They would be alright.
And with that thought in mind, Aldrich Finnegan, the late King Galateo Owl, stumbled forward through the fog, trying to find something more solid, something to steady him. But it seemed unlikely to find something as sturdy as rocky ground when--
He nearly tripped over what did, in fact, appear to be a rock at his feet, and he plummeted forward, expecting some kind of pain and the usual old soreness when he hit the ground--but he was instead greeted by a light breeze, by something that tickled like grass. The foggy dust parted, giving way to a clear vista of a glade, both sunny and cloudy, both warm and cool, studded with stones and great, winding trees. It felt, in spite of all of Aldrich’s uncertainties, like a place he could rest in.
But surely he couldn’t be the only person--(soul?)--here? He stood and made his way through the glade, looking up and around at the trees and sky in wonderment.
Meanwhile, a young woman in a pale pink dress appeared from behind a nearby tree. Her features were youthful and soft, contrasting to her cloud-white hair, and the hood from her white cape hung down despite the strong light. The girl’s head was bowed over the wrinkled parchment scroll she was absorbed with reading, but her feet moved swiftly along. She clearly was not paying any mind to her immediate surroundings, but it still came as a shock to her when she felt the sensation of phasing through something that felt suspiciously like a person--a person who yelped in surprise. She, too, cried out, dropped the scroll, picked up the scroll, and turned around to face the man. The girl placed the scroll into a sheath that had contained an heirloom sword in life, and looked at him sheepishly. She really had to watch where she was going.She chimed, “ Sorry, Mister! I didn’t mean to do that,” and then her voice turned quieter. “I know you from somewhere,” she stated matter-of-factly. She had realized while looking at him that he seemed familiar, though older and more worn than she remembered.
The man studied her for a long moment, his eyes rather wide, but then something seemed to spark in his memory, and his whole face lit up.
“Ilaria?” he mustered at length. “The--the pale protector?”
Ilaria giggled lightly, nodding her head once she realized who was standing there before her. There was only one person who had called her that- Aldrich, the friendly, unlucky man who had a bunch of sculptures that were alive, and who needed a bodyguard, a long time back when she was still alive. There wasn’t a trace of sadness in her mind. Her own death had faded to the background, while the wounds vanished from her ghostly form, and it didn’t occur fully to her that he had to have died to be there now.
“Yes, I’m Ilaria. Aldrich, right? It’s good to see you again. How were the years?” she said cordially, her silver-blue eyes going wide with curiosity and excitement as his had a moment earlier. She didn’t leave him a window for response, and instead took a few fast steps closer to him and threw her arms outward and around him for a corporeal hug.
“It’s wonderful to see you again,” Aldrich began, nearly laughing at the embrace but returning it fondly. Again this motion made him ache for the people he’d just left behind. Goodness, though--it was good to meet Ilaria here, doing so well. How were the years? ....Aldrich pondered this question.
Where on earth did he even begin?
“It’s been--” Aldrich paused, and smiled abashedly at Ilaria in amazement. “It’s been quite a whirlwind.
“Ah, I--I don’t think you knew,” he suddenly realized. The embrace separated, and Aldrich motioned the young woman to sit down in the grass, as he did so himself. “I don’t think you knew--and to be honest, I didn’t know for a while, either--I--Did you know I was--...” He started over. “I lost my mother when I was very small--She was the queen.”
“Huh.”
Many things had never stopped confusing Ilaria, but the degree of confusion she was feeling at that moment was spectacular. It wasn’t someone failing to make her understand what exactly magic was for the dozenth time, it was something entirely out of the normal plane of experience. How could this sculptor guy be a child of the queen? Ilaria didn’t remember any of his parents being around when she visited him at his studio, but she hadn’t even daydreamed that she had been protecting some lost royal. “You’re a prince?” she finally inquired, once she stopped being flabbergasted enough to manage the question.
Aldrich smiled apologetically. “The Shadows reunited me with my mother, and I--I became king. Some people call me Galateo Owl instead, but--for some, I’ll always be Aldrich.” Seeing Ilaria’s astonishment, he paused and attempted to lighten the weight of the revelation, adding, “My sculptures have had quite a lot of adventures roaming about the Raven’s Keep. I think you would have enjoyed seeing them.”
“The Shadows!” Ilaria exclaimed, “I never thought you a rebel. Or living in the Keep.”
What Ilaria had last known of the Shadows in life was their disruption at the fatal coronation. Those she met afterwards had mixed opinions on them. The younger and poorer they were, the more they looked at the Shadows as heros. Some of the old nobles didn’t like them, or their methods, or what they stood for, but she didn’t know if she should listen to them or not. A lot of people had different ways of seeing the world and Ilaria had discovered that in her recent adventures. Galateo was a name she had heard around from all these people, but it felt so odd trying to match it up with the blur of Aldrich’s face. She was glad to hear the sculptures were still having their fun. They were funny and cool, and she remembered them from her short stint bodyguarding Aldrich.
“I liked your sculptures,” Ilaria said with a grin. “You’ll have to tell me some time about what they’ve done- and what you’ve done! What was it like as a king?”
Aldrich was grinning, but he paused thoughtfully at this question, scratching his beard. “...Stressful? Exhilarating? Weighty? Crazy? ...Busy,” he said. “There’s always something more you want to help with, some things you’re helpless to aid, some things best left alone. There are so many voices in the country you would think they would form a discordant choir, but every once in a rare while they’ll almost strike a sweet note in unison. And you have to help be the conductor through all of it, listening and trying to keep everyone up to a tempo.”
He squinted off in the distance. “But it wasn’t all business. Very far from it. I--I got married and--and I became a father,” he began, turning back to Ilaria, his whole face brightening up again, yet simultaneously turning a little bereft, as if looking at some memory just behind her.
“...I wish you could have met my family,” he said at length. “And I wish you could have seen the sculptures in the Keep, too. I’m sure they could have used some guarding here and there. They...they were so unreasonable, always posing as statues and scaring visitors, sneaking into castle rooms, accidentally knocking candles off the chandeliers and setting things on fire, leaving scuff marks on the rafters and the archways, interrupting meetings, giving bruises and rides to the kids when they were little, and--”
Aldrich suddenly realized that he was shivering a little from simultaneously wanting to laugh and to cry.
“Ah ‘Woo,” he said at last, thickly, looking apologetically at Ilaria. “I’m sorry...I miss them all already.”
“Missing is okay,” Ilaria declared, as she saw the distress on his face and gave him another hug. Thoughts began to swarm her with the force and passion of a hurricane wave, as her mind returned to the life she had lost for the first time in quite awhile. She closed her eyes and took on a serene expression. “There was this woman I daydreamed about marrying once upon a time. She was an elf- very beautiful and smart and kind and strong and brave,” Her eyes fluttered back open when she realized where the story was going, “I loved her. Her name was Kaldora and she was my best friend.”
“She didn’t want to be my girlfriend because she was actually a dragon, but we were very close and we had great times together. I’ve been really busy here too- I’m not managing a kingdom like you did, but I’m busy with these heroic quests. I didn’t forget about her- I never will,and I’ve always figured she’s been up to grand things without me, since she’s strong. Maybe you’ve seen her? When she’s an elf, she had purple skin with pretty markings by her eyes, and her hair was mostly white-ish. She’s gold and a bit spiky as a dragon. I miss my Kali a lot now that I think of it… have you seen her?”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend more time with her,” said Aldrich, still trying to make sense of what Ilaria had just told him. He paused, straining his memory very hard to try to picture an elf--dragon?--of this description--but there were so many faces, so many that didn’t match.
“I--I’m sorry, I don’t know if I ever met your friend,” he managed finally. “I’ve met a lot of elves, but no one quite like that. And while there was that incident with some irreverent dragons that one autumn, I’m pretty sure they were blue. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. I’m sure your friend misses you terribly, too.”
Ilaria didn’t really know what she had been expecting. She had wished that Kaldora would be around and faring well, but not even Ilaria’s own parents had mentioned seeing her. Aldrich, another lost friend, was giving her a reminder of the limited time she had spent with her beloved. Her heart ached to imagine the girl she had left behind feeling the same sort of void.
“I don’t want her missing me, exactly. It’s not that I want her to forget me; it’s hard to explain.” she said quietly, “Her friendship meant the world to me, but she’s going to live for centuries and I don’t want to make her miserable because of the few months we knew each other. I want her to be happy even if I won’t be with her.” She looked at Aldrich, who managed a sad, sympathetic smile as he listened.
“Those months were wonderful,” she went on. “We made stories together, and talked about all sorts of stuff, and I adored every word of hers. We hugged a lot, danced a bit, and I got her into a few of the dresses I made. She looked like a princess. We played with her kitten together, the one that followed her around all the time, and laughed until both our lungs hurt. Days and nights like that were when I was the most, well, alive. It’s not bad here, but..” The tears began to trickle from Ilaria’s eyes.
Now it was Aldrich’s turn to give Ilaria a light hug. “It’s hard to lose someone,” he said gently. “But you can still remember and treasure those good times. They’re...they’re important. And it sounds like you were both very close, even if you were together for only a precious short time.”
“We were together until the very, very end. It was torture that Kali couldn’t get to me at first, after he ran me through and I was dying, but when she was able to move again, she came close to me and held me in her arms. She kept talking to me, saying I was a hero and that I was going to be okay. It was good to have her there. My beloved was the very last thing I saw. She was the last thing I felt, other than all the pain. It was agony. The wound was very big and it hurt more than anything I’ve ever known, but she held me close. She was warm and soft, comforting, even though I felt her sobbing. Kali tried everything in her power to save me, but it just didn’t take. Blood gets everywhere but where it needs to be with a wound like that, you know. She sang to me, bound the wound, used medicine to try to make it hurt less, everything. I clung to her voice and the sight of her face but there wasn’t anything she could do. He wouldn’t hurt any more people, but it was too late for me.”
Her appearance had started to take a ghastly transformation as she began to recount her death, a visceral hole blooming outwards from her stomach like a morbid rose and bloodying her dress. Her shoulder and her dress were torn, too, reflecting her state on the last day of her life. She winced, moving her hands to shield her fatal wound from his view. It had been a long time since she felt it there, and she didn’t want to distress him by letting him see it, if he hadn’t already.
“No, not this. It hurts. P-please don’t look. You don’t want to look,” Ilaria whimpered, turning away from Aldrich.
Lulled into sadness by her account, Aldrich had jolted at first when he saw what was happening at her stomach, and for a moment he didn’t know what to do. But then he swallowed and held Ilaria’s shoulder, trying to turn her back.
“W-wait, you have to look at wounds sometimes. Don’t worry about me, what can I do? Ilaria, can I do anything to help? I don’t know how this--Let me help you. C-can I help?”
Ilaria saw him look distraught, but attempt to draw her back to him. She was correct about distressing him over her fatal wounds as she feared it would. The girl spun back to face him, removing her hands from her stomach and clasping them together, instead, “It’s a nasty hole that’s been gone for a long time before this. I wish you could help but you can’t really fix it. It’s from me thinking- and feeling. It’s that my death was bad but it could have been much worse. It could have been him killing Kali in front of me. He nearly did. He was about to kill her. It’s me thinking about the man who murdered me. They say third time’s a charm, and they are right in this case. The man I killed.” grimly, with a twisted echo of a smile, “Ancel. I hate to say that name. Well, he’s surely burning in the ‘Pit now! I made sure of it.”
Aldrich flinched with a grimace, trying to keep up. “This was at the Bloody Coronation?” he said. “Was it that day? Third time’s the--This man wasn’t a Courdonian soldier? Why would he have done this? Why would he have had any business in trying to kill you and your friend that you had to defend yourself in such a way?”
“Kali said he was Courdonian, but he wasn’t really a soldier. He was a monster of his own kind. His hair and eyes were red like blood, and his soul was rotted as the ‘Pit. He killed her family before she came to Kyth and a lot of other people too. He was a serial murderer with his victims notched off on his crossbow. About a hundred, I remember… and I was his last one,” Ilaria explained. “I think I told you ages ago that someone had tried to murder me as being a vampire and got put in the stocks. That was him. The next time I saw him he said that he wanted me to be his bride. He couldn’t have really been in love, since he wanted me dead. No matter what, it was really creepy. He told me he’d kill me and Kali if I didn’t surrender myself to him. I couldn’t take that, so I charged him, and we fought with our swords for awhile. He fled to a turret on a gryphon and we flew after him, but he shot her down before we could land and we plummeted onto that tower really, really hard. He stuck me when I was recovering from the fall and he was going to kill her too, if I didn’t get him. That’s what happened to my sword. His reign of terror ended that day, but I got taken away from her...”
For a moment Aldrich felt something twinge and flare in his own stomach: anger. He had dimly recalled someone similar to that description once, long ago, in a tavern, flailing a sword at Babewyn, pontificating in drunken blatherings about demons. He had seen this person. Aldrich had had no idea--this man had even--how many had he already--how dare the man have even considered Ilaria as--what sort of twisted concept of love and rejection and then violence--and then--
But Ilaria still looked shaky with fury, out of breath from relaying the story of her death in a cascade of emotion; she looked full of fire and defiance at the memories of her attacker, yet acutely distressed and forlorn at everything torn away from her.
Aldrich let out a breath and looked Ilaria in the eye. “I’m sorry that I asked you to explain. ...I didn’t realize. I was at the Bloody Coronation that day, and I...I wish I could have been there with you to help, somehow. You were noble to have defended your friend, but I’m so sorry all of that happened like it did.”
A swirling breeze from down the glade ruffled the grass at their feet. Aldrich glanced away from Ilaria for a moment, down the pasture, at rustling trees and gleaming rocks.
He peered back at her inquiringly, with her wound and her pained face, still wondering what he could do to help, knowing there wasn’t anything. “Emery and I sculpted a memorial for you and for people like you who died that day, to help us all remember,” he said finally, softly.
“My parents told me about the memorial. That was sweet of you and Emery,” she murmured, fiddling with her sheath.
“Thank you for telling me what happened that day--but I’m sorry that I made you relive the memories,” said Aldrich. “It sounds like you’ve done a lot here, though? Can--can you tell me about that? You mentioned doing some kind of heroic quests? Do you get to travel and help people here, like you did for people in Medieville?”
The flow of Ilaria’s tears began to slow as the conversation turned to a less painful topic.
“I actually didn't get to do much heroics during my time in Medieville, that freedom was only the last couple years. I’m very free here and I have been taking on lots of missions. Mostly, I’m a messenger or a friend. I travel around this vast area and help reunite people. Lovers, friends, family divided by time. There are a lot of interesting stories they tell me and I find myself in all sorts of places. That scroll I was looking at before I bumped into you has a bunch of descriptions on it, that I’m looking for folks by. Knowing to write comes in handy for that. Many here can’t. I try to comfort new arrivals, too. Usually, it's doesn’t turn like this…” Ilaria replied solemnly, glancing again at the hole in her belly that had begun to fade away again, but not completely. She looked back at Aldrich the moment she became conscious of what she had shifted her attention back to.
“I’ve done a crummy job welcoming you here,” she sighed.
“No, no,” said Aldrich. “Don’t be silly, I’m very glad that you were the one to have met and welcomed me here, of all the people I could have run into. You’ve been missed, but your work here sounds wonderful.”
“Aldrich, you are really kind. I didn’t want you to see... that, though, and I’m supposed to be the one making you feel more at ease. On that, would there be anyone you lost who you’d want help finding?” Ilaria offered warmly, “I could take another quest, easily.”
An odd mixture of surprise and confusion crossed Aldrich’s face before his eyes widened with the understanding of this offer. “R-really?” he said brightly, nervously. “Anyone I--... Would you know where I could look to find my mother? Queen Maia? Or my--my adoptive father? His name was Samuel. Or any of the old royal family, I don’t know, I never got to meet them properly, I… Or, have--have you seen any of my other sculptures here? Not--not the ones you met, but ones that fled the studio after I brought them to life but never came back, I don’t know if they all could have--...Have you ever seen any of them here? I worry about what--Would they have come here? Would--” Aldrich paused for a moment to swallow and to catch his breath. “S-sorry,” he said quickly. “That’s quite a lot. Carina and Babewyn always tell me I’m a chronic worrier. One thing at a time?”
“I can help you find all of them. Not all of yours in one go, but I always look for a few at once. All types have loved ones and they show up in odd places at times. There's been big history-type people and regular ones I’ve talked to. I’ve seen sculptures run across here wild, like they were trying to chase after the sunset! They’ll be here. I’d just need to know what they look like- or what they feel like.” She pressed a pale fist over her heart, and a small remnant of shakiness was all that stayed as the wounds had fully faded once more, “That’s a good way to find folks here. Who do you want to find first? Parents or sculptures or royals? How did they make you feel?”
“Maybe we can start with parents?” Aldrich suggested as they made their way across the grassy glade together, looking back around and then ahead at the horizon. “If the sculptures are anything like the ones I know, they’ll probably show up when I’m not expecting them. ...Oh ‘Woo, I’m glad they can make it here. Worried, that’s how they make me feel. ...Also excited, too, really. And same for my parents, though in a different way. They make me feel excited to do something, excited to share something with them, yet worried I might make a mistake or disappoint them. Also sadness at being apart for too long, like homesickness, and they feel like home, all at once. Kind of like here, sort of. Home and homesickness, confusion but sureness.” Aldrich paused, letting his gaze rove around the glade and then back to his friend. “Thank you, Ilaria. For offering. I’d also love to see places that you enjoy visiting, as well.”
“That’s a good start. I’m really glad to help. By what you said, I should be able to track them just fine.” Ilaria paused to shut her eyes, her expression lined with concentration, and breathed deeply for a spell. When she opened her eyes again, they were more brightly illuminated, seemingly from within, and she took back to walking.
“The closest is near where I sensed that blonde girl’s father was, or one of the lost kittens that old lord was looking- this way about, in short. As for places I like… well my parents are on the way, if you want to say ‘hello’ in person to them. That letter you sent meant a lot to them and they’d be so happy to meet a king! There’s also this beautiful waterfall that’s good for sitting by, but it’s a detour. There’s a lot of pretty places, actually. It’s good here.”
Aldrich smiled. “That sounds wonderful, thank you. And I’d love the chance to meet your parents, as well.”
They strode off across the glade and beyond, chatting and occasionally laughing, sometimes even crying or even gasping--and it did feel that at the end of one road led another, perhaps to lost pieces refound and mended with the old.
And so the grand pair walked on--the king and the heroine--yet, to an unfamiliar onlooker, the two appeared simply as two very old friends, reunited at last.