Out of Legend
I
It was the last morning they were going to be together before the wedding. The finality of what that meant drove home the reality of his situation, causing his blood pressure and heart rate to rise a bit higher than any normal day. He had done his best to divert his mind from it, to insist it was still a ways off, but in all honesty, the moon only had one cycle left before vows were exchanged.
I’m getting married.
Not in some distant future, not a few years down the road, but within a month’s time, he’d be crowned Prince of Griedlok; his world changed forever. He did the best to hide the anxiety he was experiencing, but she’d known him long enough to see right through it. Her warm smiles and understanding glances told him as much.
He nodded to the guards as they lead their horses across the drawbridge and into the settlement situated along the southern walls of the fortress. Not everyone liked the confinement of castle walls, and the curfew was not as strictly enforced, giving the townspeople a higher level of freedom than those staying within. Yet, like most things, everything came with a cost. Any invading army would certainly destroy and burn everything they had when laying siege to the castle, the fortress’s ability to protect them severely hampered by the unwalled addition to its girth. Still, it was the choice they made, and he had to respect it.
His eyes drifted to the right and fixated on a single point, a smile forming upon his face without even thinking about it. It was hard to not take a moment and admire the shape of his fiancé’s rear as she swung her leg over her horse and settled into place.
Before he could shift to something else, she turned to look down on at him and caught the direction of his gaze, making his face flush. She shook her head in amazement as he stumbled over to his own horse and attempted to follow suit. “You’re such a guy.”
“Got a lot of experience with guys, do you? We’ve been engaged since we were four, you telling me you’ve played around behind my back? And remember, you’re the one marrying me, if you want someone who’s less enraptured with all that you are, I’m sure there’s plenty of stable boys out there that would just love to make it with an elven princess,” he snickered, latching his feet in the stirrups and tightening his grips on the reins.
She was making sure the basket and bedroll were secured behind her saddle and didn’t see the smirk on his face. “Keep it up and I’ll make you spend the first month of our marriage bunking with the horses, give our stable boys a hand. And for your information, no, you’re the only one I’ve ever been interested in,” she finished, giving him a dirty look. “I’m no tavern wench, thank you very much.”
There was movement out of the corner of his eye and he turned in that direction, his words coming out of the side of his mouth as he countered, “I know that dear. I’m sorry, I was just teasing.”
“Better have been,” she grunted a bit too loudly.
A merchant’s stall was situated along the main road through town, its windows shuttered, the building appearing to be abandoned. Leaning against the wall facing them was a young man with a sash tied over his eyes; apparently blind. He had short ragged hair, black leather armor, and a matching cloak. For the briefest moment, it seemed the blind boy looked their way and nodded.
He twitched his head in disbelief. How was that possible? He felt odd nodding in return, then purposely shifted his eyes towards his betrothed in a dismissive gesture, all the time wondering if the sash was a fashion statement rather than a sign of a handicap. She was apparently satisfied with the straps holding down her gear and looked ready to depart, not even noticing that they had a strange visitor hovering nearby watching.
The Guardians assigned as their escorts rode up behind them, their presence unwanted but not necessarily unwarranted with the tensions of late; who knew what fear could drive even the sanist man to do if he felt threatened? If the blind boy was a danger, he surely wouldn’t have been allowed to get so close. Maybe that was the purpose behind the sash? To mask his presence and make him appear as nothing more than a harmless blind boy so he could get closer without throwing off any alarms. He hurriedly glanced back at the merchant’s stall, but the boy in question had disappeared.
Had the Guardians’ appearance chased him off?
“Sire, everything okay?” one of the elven Guardians asked, looking towards the abandoned building, his hand going to his sword.
“Yeah, sorry Windel,” he returned, straightening up. “Lost in my thoughts. It was nothing.” Feeling weirded out and not knowing why he bothered to lie to the man, he nudged his horse, and tried to put the whole thing out of his mind. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, every time he almost drifted off he’d snap wide awake.
Something was amiss, and the feeling of dread would not disperse; even when the morning sun edged over the horizon with the promise of a new day. He felt like he was on the brink of something life changing; the air heavy and his senses wary. So, it was possible that he was jumping at shadows, seeing ghouls instead of teddy bears; that it was all just in his imagination.
Willow had found him on the balcony staring out at the sunrise. She beckoned him to come back to bed, but for him, the time for sleep had passed. She decided they needed to get out of the castle for a while, an impromptu picnic to brighten their day. She was sensitive to his moods and set about trying to distract him from the dark cloud that sapped his spirit. He hadn’t known what to say when she asked what was wrong; there were no words. He couldn’t put a name to the uneasiness that was affecting him, it was something in the air, elusive and hard to point at.
His fiancé was looking at him with concern, obviously wondering if her attempt at cheering him up was working or if it was just going to be one of those days. He forced a smile and tried to shrug the heaviness off his shoulders, then reached out to stroke Dancer’s mane. The horse nickered and perked his ears, grateful for the attention.
There was a river that flowed from the eastern woods to the moat that surrounded the castle. It would then continue south to Crystal Cove, one of the many places he used to fish when he was younger. The forest that he and John had hunted in was to the southwest and as they rode along the thoroughfare snaking along the river, he realized that she was leading him yet into another forest. What was wrong with picnicking by the lake or under a lone tree? Didn’t she know he’d just spent an entire day in the woods? His teeth were grinding, and he fought off the building irritation. No sense taking his crankiness out on her, when all she was trying to do was make him happy. The Guardians had begun to fan out, giving them some degree of privacy, and he took a few long deep breaths in an effort to calm down.
The road they were following would eventually take them to Griedlok. The feeling that he would be on this very road in a few weeks traveling to his new home wasn’t lost on him. Such a short time, and he hadn’t even packed yet. There were stewards to do that for him, but it felt impersonal. He didn’t want anyone else touching his stuff; it bothered him on a deeper level. He had grown up having people wait on him, no matter how strenuously he argued against and it would only get worse when he got to Griedlok.
He’d prefer to be left alone, to just be with her in some cottage some place; maybe a farm. Some remote location away from the world and the attention that came with it. For just an instant, he fantasized about the two of them turning their horses south, riding until they got to the ocean, and escape the scripted future of their lives. He rubbed his left hand across his brow, smoothing the worry lines gathered there. The pressure felt good. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. Fantasies were all they were, and he knew it.
As he opened his eyes, he realized how quiet his betrothed had become. It surprised him, she rarely let long periods of silence ensue before forcing a conversation. She was not the silent contemplative type. It had grown apparent growing up that excessive silence really bugged the shit out of her. Being the polar opposite, he should’ve minded, but the sound of her voice was so relaxing that it rarely intr
uded upon his frame of mind.
When they were together, people had learned to defer to her first, since she did more than enough talking for both of them. He felt a giggle surface but suppressed it. The breeze was shifting her blond hair as they rode, and he took a minute to admire how the sun lit up her smooth skin. His eyes began to follow the seams of her blouse, coming to rest on her breasts. Flashes of the previous evening, their naked bodies intertwined intruded on his thoughts and he had to look away. The blood rose in his cheeks and he coughed in embarrassment.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, in a rare moment of being the first to speak.
She rode in silence, her eyes on the approaching forest and the clouds above. After a few moments, her shoulders finally slumped as she looked his way in defeat. “Do you want to marry me?”
His body froze and his mind blank, “what?”
Where did that come from?
She sighed and looked away.
He couldn’t think of what to say. He pulled back on his reins and brought Dancer to a halt. She kept riding for a few paces before doing the same, refusing to look at him. He nudged his horse closer to hers and brought himself alongside her. “Hey, look at me,” he begged, reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged off.
What the hell?
They sat in silence, their horses bending over to nip at some stray pieces of grass on the road below. “The way you’ve been acting—I’m not sure you still want to marry me,” she finally responded. He thought he could see a tear sliding down her cheek. “I try to ignore your mood swings, to brush it off and act like everything is okay, but it’s not, is it? Am I fooling myself? Why else would you suddenly infer that I’m cheating on you with other men? Am I just naïve and think we’re more than what we really are?”
His mind was racing, he had no idea where this was coming from and it was making him fumble for something to say. “Of course I want to marry you. I was just teasing earlier. I wasn’t being serious. You’re the love of my life and I have no doubt whatsoever that you feel the same,” he managed, trying to furiously come up with a way to soothe her fears and correct his earlier bad attempt at humor.
“You don’t have to pretend; it’s just us here,” she returned, a hitch in her throat.
“I’m not! It’s not you—,” he stuttered, trying desperately to find the right words. He hated making her upset, especially when he had no clear way of fixing whatever it was he did or said. It had to be more than the crack earlier, something deeper; they teased one another all the time.
“It’s not you, it’s me. Is that what you were going to say? Isn’t that what they all say?” she asked, and he felt like he got punched in the gut.
“What who says? I don’t get it,” he inquired, confused. “I want nothing more in this world than you as my wife. You are the only thing that matters to me. My lone torch in the darkness, fighting back the shadows, bringing your warmth into my life. Don’t ever question that I want to marry you. In three weeks, we will stand together in front of our people and proclaim our love for all to see. I will be at your side then and I will continue to be so until the day I die.”
He tried to reach out and smooth the tears from her face, but she had turned away as his hand approached and refused to let him touch her. “Willow, seriously.”
“Seriously what? The entire time I’ve been here you’ve been brooding, constantly irritated, and the one night we spend together you can’t sleep next to me? How do you plan on doing it for the rest of our lives if you can’t handle it for one night? I’m here for three days and you spend one of them hunting with your brother? Couldn’t you have found time for that after I went back home? Do you not want to spend time with me?” she thundered. Her voice was raised, which was rare, and he felt the barrage of questions slap him with every word she spat.
How could they have such a magical evening and awaken to this much hostility? “Is this a woman thing?” he blurted without thinking it through.
The look she gave him chilled his blood.
“I’m sorry,” he pleaded and lowered his eyes. He could feel the violence in her stare. “I woke up yesterday and felt like I had to escape. That so much was closing in on me that I couldn’t breathe. It had nothing to do with you, but with all the crap that’s going on right now. I didn’t think about it when John asked me to go with him, I just saw a chance to be free of it all for a while. I went with it. I’ve gotten so used to you being here that it never occurred to me that you’d be upset about it.”
He met her eyes; they were still icy. He was at a loss for words. He turned his head and let out a heavy sigh. How could things go to shit so fast? “It’s all this tension floating around the castle. It’s been getting crazier by the day and I feel panicked almost all the time. I don’t understand how my father and brother handle it all so calmly. I don’t know if I have it in me to do the same. Am I nervous about marrying you? Yes. Not because I don’t want to be your husband, but because of what comes with it. I was raised to be a nothing, and I don’t know how to be a something. It has absolutely nothing to do with you, only my inadequacy to be your father’s heir.”
It hurt to admit it and he felt a weight shifting in his chest as he finally did so. A hand stroked his cheek and he let his face be turned. Their eyes met. “You do have it in you. I’ve seen it. You are being unfair to yourself,” she comforted softly.
“This panic I feel, the uneasiness and frustration, how is that a quality of a king?” he argued, not letting it go.
She laughed, wiping her tears away, “do you think they don’t feel it too? They’re just better at hiding it. It’s natural to fear what you can’t control. It’s what drives them to do what’s right. Without it, they can’t anticipate what comes next. It’s the nightmares that feed the imagination and help them prepare for the worst. Do not let it overtake you. Control it, use it to be a better man; a better king.”
He fought back the tears and nodded his head. He knew she was right, but sometimes knowing a thing and being able to act on it were two completely different things. “I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you too,” she answered with a lowered voice.
They sat there in silence for a while, letting the raging emotions settle down. He felt the sun on his face, the sweat cooling on his skin, and the saddle making his inner thighs sore. His stomach growled, startling them both. “I’m hungry.”
She chuckled, “then let’s get moving so we can eat.” She reached out and squeezed his hand, letting him know that everything was okay. He saw from the look in her eyes that the worst was over; honesty had been all that was needed to heal the rift that had sprung up between them. He hated fighting with her, but he had to admit, a great weight had lifted, and he felt refreshed; better prepared to meet whatever came next.
Hours later he would wonder how he ever thought that was possible.
He looked up at the clouded sky and bid farewell to the barely visible sun. They were only fifty yards from Rakeshire Forest and the shadows of the trees were reaching out to embrace them.
They both kicked the flanks of their horses and started forward once more. The dirt road was beckoning; the bird song calling their names. As they entered the tree line he heard a hawk cry out, but he didn’t turn to see from where. He was with the woman that would soon be his wife and was determined not to let anything else interfere with them having a good day together. He let everything go and felt a genuine smile forming.
Maybe everything was going to be all right after all.
II
An hour later they were lying on a large blanket beneath an old oak tree, their eyes locked on one another. Lunch had been consumed, stomachs assuaged, and now they were basking in the joy that came from being alone away from the bustling chaos of their lives.
They were in the center of a small glen, the lone tree they were leaning against estranged from its protective kin surrounding them. A pond lay to their left, lily pads floating across its s
erene surface by unseen forces. The sound of a wagon carried on the wind, but they were far enough off the beaten path that it’d be near impossible for anyone to find them; unless they were intentionally looking. Birds were singing, and the frogs croaked an offbeat tune, trying to add to their melody. He swatted at a bug that came to rest on her shoulder and quickly forgot about it once it took flight.
He was once again lost within her eyes, feeling them pull him closer. He traced a finger up her arm and leaned forward to taste her lips. Their mouths began to work, and he felt the heat rising; his adrenaline pumping. Comfortable in the privacy their bodyguards provided, they felt free to act upon the desires that raged between them. His right hand fell to her right calf and started sliding up her inner thigh. His mouth pushed further against hers as her hands began pulling at his shirt. He could feel his body stir and yearned to be inside her once more.
A loud cough made them jump.
He yanked his hand away instantly and their lips broke apart, both heads turning towards the unexpected intrusion. Why would one of the Guardians intrude upon their time together, was there something wrong?
Seeing a group of strangers in the place of their bodyguards drove him to his feet without thought. His sword hung on a nub of the tree behind them. He quickly grasped the sheath in one hand and drew his blade with the other. Willow was gripping her amulet tightly, ready to weave her elven magic at the slightest provocation. Side by side, they steadied themselves for what came next.
Four figures stood on the path leading into the glen; seemingly indifferent to their defensive actions.
A tall woman was on the left with short dark red hair and a stern face. She wore polished black platemail with red trim, the well-cared for armor glinting in the sunlight. A large shield appeared to be strapped to her back and one hand was on the pommel of her sword, barely visible from the concealment of her black cloak.
Standing by her side was the young boy he had seen while exiting the castle grounds. He had a long walking stick in his grasp, which looked like it was used as a weapon more often than a guide. The boy was chuckling at something unspoken. Next to the imposing armored woman, he could see a resemblance between them and knew that they were related.
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