My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "She hated you because she wanted to. Or your father, or the Snow Fairy, or anyone else. They start with the hate, then they make up an excuse for the why later, like a really bad story with lots of plot holes or whatever."

  At the end of her words, Myra squeezed his hand tighter. Gavin wanted to respond, but he felt broken, as if his bones were liquified inside his body. All his life everyone adored his father, they'd send gifts constantly, people'd flock him on the street. But did the great Commander act conceited? Oh no, he'd ask that not such a great fuss be made about it so he could return to his family's side.

  "I want to be like him," Gavin breathed, his eyes shut tight, "and I think he resents the idea."

  He felt Myra peering hard at him, both of them falling to a stop in the forest. Above, the sun managed to peek through a few leaves, casting light against Gavin's face. "A great hero! Fights for those who can't. Protects people. Keeps others safe. I thought..." Gavin's eyes opened and he focused on Myra, "How can anyone hate that?"

  Myra snorted a bit, "My mom catches bad guys, solves murders, nails rapists to the wall. Not literally, okay, except for one time but it was..." The explanation faded and she tipped her head back to the sun. Dappled light kissed her cheeks, shadows lining up along her freckles as if they marked a secret map. "People hate her. I mean hate hate. That eye popping hate that seems outlandish until you're staring down mad frothing lips spouting gibberish because they ran out of real words two paragraphs back."

  "Because she punishes criminals?" Gavin twisted in confusion.

  Her eyes parted and she stared right at him, "Because of...of things she can't change. I can't change. It doesn't matter. It's not fair, but it... It never ends, ya know. Over and over and over. Someone, somewhere, is mad about Maker damn anything. Could be the price of bread, or that his shoes are on too tight. But he needs someone to blame. Someone to look down upon. Someone to make feel worse so he can feel better."

  "That's what Ser Daryan is doing to me?"

  "Hm?" Myra darted up from her glaring at the ground and bit into her lip. It wasn't a soft nibble that could throw Gavin fully for a loop; she was biting down hard as if to keep a million thoughts from tumbling free.

  "Do you..." he reached over with his hand and tried to lightly pat her on the upper arm. "Do you want to talk about anything?"

  Myra pivoted her head, the braid whipping at the end like an angry snake. Her lips kept mouthing 'No' before she paused and her eyes drifted to the ground. In a voice so whisper quiet Gavin could barely hear it, she asked, "Why are you so nice?"

  Something in the tone caused him to balk, Gavin's body leaning away from Myra while he stared at the forest sun. Through the gaps was a sliver of light, almost like a lance from the sky itself, trying to pierce apart the leaves. "I'm not that nice," he whispered.

  Myra snorted and stuck a hand on her hip. "Please. If you got any nicer rabbits would whip that shirt off you and wash it in the river. Probably while singing a song. Can you sing?"

  "A little," he stuttered, sinking in deeper on himself. The way she said nice made it sound bad. Not like he was kind but simple minded, easily led, bamboozled into foolish situations. "But you're not...it's not like that."

  He expected her to scoff and launch into more explanations but Myra reared back a moment and her face fell. "Don't you want to be nice? People are always yelling at me to be nice. Act nicer. Speak nicer. Be nicer. Stand there and smile, make people feel welcome. I'm terrible at it."

  "Nu uh," he tugged on their clasped hands and Myra slid closer to him, "I've seen you."

  "My mom calls me a caustic wind. That's Myra, can't get her to shut up. Speaks her mind to the detriment of everyone around her." A great sigh rattled through her chest and she closed her eyes tight. "I wish..." While her words faded away, the sunbeam dipped across her freckles, light highlighting each dot the Maker kissed upon her cheeks and nose. Gavin absently licked his lips while watching.

  Unaware that the boy was staring, Myra smiled forlornly, "I wish sometimes that I could be nice, be diplomatic, but...then arseholes like that Cal would walk all over me and I get so mad at the thought of them getting away with it."

  "I hate him too," Gavin said, his eyes boring into the ground. From the back of his mind, Anjali's cryptic words returned. That's exactly the ones young girls go for. Even if they know better. Especially if they know better. Damn her for putting this fear in his stomach, which knotted each time he'd spot Myra anywhere near the other squire. Could she fall for Cal? Would she out of boredom, or a way to strike back, or...?

  Her hand cupped against his upper arm, fingers softly trailing around his bicep, "Look at you, barely out of the abbey and you're already at the hate stage with someone. I take it back, you're not singing rabbits nice."

  Wrapping his fingers overtop of hers, Gavin lightly pushed them tighter against his skin. His arm was flexed, the muscle prodding up higher than usual, and when Myra's fingers met it her eyes flared open a moment. "Thank you," he whispered, "now, we should probably head back to camp before night falls."

  Myra stepped back from him, both of her hands slipping away as a chill of the shadowed forest world filled in her wake. "You go on back, I'm heading home."

  "Why?" he shook his head, growing exhausted with her stubbornness. What in the Maker's name was bothering her?

  "Just..." she was up on her toes, looking as if she wanted to bolt back into the trees or scamper away like a startled deer. "I can't, I can't go back there because..." Wrapping a hand around the nape of her neck, Myra seemed to be trying to wring all the fear out of herself. "Because then I'll have to apologize to her. Let her win. Have her sit there smug. Or worse, do nothing and just wait for them all to do it again. Laugh as if it's nothing, make snide remarks because they think they're so Maker damn hilarious."

  Fully lost, Gavin could only shake his head in confusion. He wanted to help but... Leaning towards her without shifting his feet, he said, "Then ignore them."

  Myra glared her full wrath upon him, the anger so raw it was a wonder he didn't combust, "Because that helps. Oh no, the dam's sprung a leak. Ignore it, it'll fix itself eventually. And I hope you all know how to swim."

  "Don't talk to them, avoid them, whoever them is. I assume you can," Gavin didn't know much about her schedule but she seemed to make it at whim.

  Dropping her hands, Myra began to pace about in a circle, "I guess..." She stopped and a smirk lifted her lips, "Bet I can sneak some ink into her powder pot too. Leave her cheeks stained black as tar." The Myra he knew was in there, her eyes sparkling with the thought of getting even. Gavin wished he could be that cutting, the anger sometimes building to such a point his stomach would churn for days. But he never did a thing about it, just left it to fester.

  "But..." Myra turned away from her evil scheming, her chin dropping to her chest. "There's still Rosie. Pretty, perfect princess." Each P spat through the air like the snap of a crossbow drawstring. Suddenly she paused in her agitated pacing and hurt eyes lifted from the dropped brow to stare at Gavin. "Beautiful Rosie."

  She was aiming it at him, putting it on him, but he had no idea why. Trying to not look back as if it was meant for someone behind, Gavin lifted a shoulder and half his face in a shrug.

  "I heard you," she didn't raise her finger at him in accusation, the fire quenched by a confounding darkness upon her brow, "heard you and the other squires talking about Rosie, about how she's so beautiful."

  Gavin's nostrils flared, his brain trying to scamper away as he remembered only a sliver of the disgusting conversations the squires would strike up about any woman to cross their path. "Myra, it isn't..."

  "I heard you, they asked you what you thought of Rosie. Princess Rosamund, with hair as black as midnight and lips red as a rose. Skin of some kind of fruit, I forget what exactly. Apple maybe? Point being, you said it." Tears rose in her meadow green eyes, Myra wrapping her arms around herself as she gasped out, "You said she's beautiful."

  "I di
d," he admitted. There seemed little point in denying it.

  "And why not?" Myra slapped her hand into her elbow, "Huh? Who wouldn't want her? I mean, she's smart, she's going to be Queen, she's rich, she's...beautiful." The agitated girl stopped rocking back and forth on her feet, her entire body screeching to a halt as her head snapped down. He couldn't see but he heard tears in her voice, "You better move quick though."

  "What?" Gavin shook his head. He was getting tired of being completely lost in these discussions.

  "She's already got one marriage proposal under her skirt. There's likely to be a ton more now that the gate's opened up," Myra drew a finger against her nose, trying to mop up the mess of tears and snot.

  Reaching out, Gavin cupped his hands against her arms. "Myra..." he began, but she wouldn't lift her head. "I have no interest in your sister."

  "What?" her face whipped up. The eyes were red stained, but the look etched in them was all cross. If he dared lie to her, she'd smite him on the spot. "But you said..."

  "That she's beautiful, yes," Gavin was wincing at his choice of words. "Like a porcelain vase you keep stashed away in a cupboard, or a ship out across the ocean. I...I've always thought beautiful referred to something meant for viewing at a distance. Striking in appearance but never for," his palms soothed up and down her arms, "for touch."

  Her eyes narrowed tight, "You expect me to believe you don't understand what beautiful means? Especially when describing a girl?"

  "I've...I've read a lot of books, but haven't, um..." Maker's breath, how much had his haphazard schooling gotten him into trouble this time? Okay, so don't go calling women beautiful. It just leads to a huge problem down the line. What was he supposed to use? Attractive? Or was that one even worse.

  Myra's tears stalled, her tongue dancing over her lips in thought while the forest breeze ruffled between them. "What...?" she spoke up, "What'd you say about me? If you had to because the guys made you talk about it." She tacked on the last sentence fast, her eyes hunting through the underbrush, too scared to land upon his.

  "That," Gavin's heart slowed, a thousand paths erupting from outside of him. Each one he feared would end in disaster. "You're pretty."

  "Pretty?" she practically spat as if the word burned.

  "Pretty as a meadow flower. You turn towards the heat of the sun because you always face everything head on with a vengeance. You bloom after the rains, sorrow and pain never clinging except to invigorate you. And your smile...it's a cooling breeze tinted with jasmine and lavender swiping away a long day of work off my brow. I..."

  Oh Andraste, she was staring at him and he couldn't tell why. How badly did he just mess that up? "And you can see why I never talk to anyone, have never really talked to anyone. I'm, I'm a fool and simple farm boy."

  Myra smiled, her eyes lighting up as she unfolded her arms and drew one up his arm, "You're not a fool, you're far from simple." She leaned closer to him until he was lost in the depths of her field-by-sunrise eyes. Laughing a moment, she wet her lips and whispered, "But you are really nice."

  Tugging her forward, Gavin pressed his trembling mouth to hers. Her smile melted as she softened her lips to pucker against his, unwinding memories of his youth when everything was simple and pure. Myra's hand wrapped around his cheek, her fingers pulsing along his jaw as she raised up on her toes to lengthen the kiss. It was better than he remembered, a sense of belonging rising up from his stomach as she tilted her head to the right and lightly opened her mouth.

  Gavin lapped his hot tongue with hers only for a beat, moving the two young lovers further along than they ever managed when they were thirteen. A noise rumbled in Myra's throat, her moaning causing his body to react and beg for more. With a regretful pop, he pulled back, but his fingers never left her, and she didn't release him.

  Her lips were pinker than a strawberry, the bottom one slightly parted as if she had no idea what to make of this. "So," Myra began, waffling back and forth on her toes even as her fingers climbed up to rub against his hair. Maker, the way she softly drew her palm back and forth over his scalp was mesmerizing. He couldn't think, could barely remember to breathe at the contact.

  "You started it this time," she said, a laugh in her voice but the concern was evident in her eyes.

  "I did," he admitted, tipping his head down.

  "Do you..." Her hand drifted off his head to land squarely upon a shoulder, "Are you already thinking it was a bad idea?"

  Yes. You promised. You swore that you'd never put yourself into this situation again.

  But it's Myra. She's not...she's safe. She's sweet. She's... Gavin cupped his palm against her cheek and pushed some of her freed hair behind her ear. She's a meadow flower.

  "No," he said, nearly all of him certain of it.

  Myra gasped out a laugh and bonked her pointy nose into the end of his. Giggling at the foolish move, she pressed another kiss to his lips while her fingers moved to cup down to his biceps. In the middle of her filling his body with heat, she gave a quick squeeze. Whatever she enjoyed out of it made her back tremble. Breaking off the kiss, Myra locked her hands around behind his neck, her chest pressed to his.

  "Was this just a one or two time thing? Needing to relive the past or...?"

  He always liked her more than he knew he should. She was the daughter to the King, she lived on the other side of the country. The mere idea of him being with her seemed to set his father's teeth on edge. And yet, she was often on his mind. He'd press his mother for information about what Myra got up to, then have to feign indifference when she wondered why they weren't writing to each other anymore.

  Swallowing deep, Gavin stared into the eyes that sparkled through his thoughts, "No. I don't think it is."

  She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, a smile stretching wide until those sheer cliff of cheekbones softened. "Good," Myra said loudly, then coughed and tried to drag her voice down, "I mean, should be fun. Right? It was always lots of fun."

  "Yeah," he nodded, his heart beating faster, the noise deafening against his ears, when he remembered her chest was yet pressed up against his. Was it trying to communicate through his ribs to hers?

  Foolish. Don't act like a country rube, Gavin.

  "Does this mean you're going to stay with the caravan?" he asked.

  Myra rolled her eyes and stepped back from him, but her fingers threaded through both of his hands to maintain contact, "I was never going to run away back home, and Rosie knew it too."

  "That's probably why she didn't send me," Gavin said, one of his goofy smiles lifting his lips. Myra giggled at the sight and tried to match it in kind. "Also," he dropped one of her hands to point towards the east, "you were heading in the wrong direction."

  "Ah." She rolled her head around on her shoulders then shrugged, "City girl, through and through. I hope you know how to get us out of these woods."

  "I have some idea, and if we get lost I think I know someone who can climb up the trees to look around," he said, butting his face against her cheek and pressing a silly kiss to it. Inside his heart was singing with joy, finally happy to admit to the world that yes he really did want this. But his brain sulked in the corner pointing to his promise and his wish to be a knight. This was going to be a problem, unless he was very very careful.

  Myra began to tug them back the way they came, their hands clasped together. Trying to shake off the doom and gloom, Gavin let the last ray of the sun land upon his face before he trailed after into the forest's shadows. Suddenly, Myra froze and she gasped.

  Gavin whipped around to see if there was a pack of wolves or a bear nearby but she snickered, "I just realized every single girl at every single stop here on out is going to haaate me." He had no idea how to respond, but Myra laughed, "Good thing I don't give a shit."

  By the time they emerged out of the forest, they'd dropped their hands and walked staggered apart -- though they stopped about a dozen times to kiss, savoring in the old found thrill. Gavin looked up surprised to find Rosa
mund standing right where she was left behind what had to be over an hour ago, but Myra seemed to expect it.

  "Hey sis!" she called, waving her hand madly through the air.

  "Sweet merciful Maker, Myra. I was a damn mess fretting about you and..." the Princess' lashing tongue froze as she stared down at Myra's chest, "What in Andraste's blessing happened to your clothes?"

  "Uh..." Myra glanced over at the far muddier Gavin, who sort of transferred that dirt to her when they were kissing. A lot. Which was the last thing either of them wanted to tell the princess. "Fell," Myra said instead. "I was running through the trees like an idiot and missed the landing. Took down the squire here too, flat onto his stomach to save me. Sorry about that, squire," she reached over to slap him on the back and laughed.

  "It's...it's quite alright," Gavin could feel his cheeks lightening up from the lie and also the secret.

  "Go get changed, the launders will need to work on that as soon as possible," Rosamund was in full tongue clucking mode, "And...give them the helpful Squire's clothing as well."

  Myra paused in her steps and turned to eyeball up Gavin. "What? Like, right now? Strip him clean off?"

  The Princess groaned, a hand placed to her forehead, "You know what I mean."

  "Yeah, yeah," Myra laughed, already breaking into a run to get to her tent and change.

  Gavin was about to follow when the Princess placed her dainty hand upon his forearm, freezing him in his tracks. Her eyes were focused upon her sister as she said, "Thank you, for bringing her back. I know Myra can be a handful but...I worry about her."

  "Do you ever tell her that?" It slipped out of Gavin's mouth before he realized who he was talking to.

  Rather than admonish him, Rosamund's brow clouded and her eyes drifted to the ground. "No," she whispered before snickering, "because I imagine Myra would turn it into a joke somehow."

  That was fair, and probably true. Bowing his head, Gavin turned towards his tent where there was a fresh non-muddied shirt and trousers waiting for him. Also a roommate he'd have to be swearing to secrecy. The last thing he needed was the rest of the squires finding out he was involved with the king's daughter. He'd either never hear the end of it from Cal, or receive even more harassment from Ser Daryan.