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It started with a letter.
The three of them stumbled across the torn-up body of a man in the Valewood, and Nelda gently turned him over, mouth downturned.
“Must have been the wolves,” Eder commented, bending to help her.
“I wonder if anyone is looking for him,” she said. “We could leave word at the inn.”
As they rolled the body over, a stained, crumpled letter fell out of his hand, and Nelda picked it up.
“What does it say?” Aloth asked her, leaning over her shoulder so he could see.
Nelda glanced between the letter in her hand and his face, then away. “I… don’t know,” she said slowly, and Aloth realised that she was embarrassed.
It surprised him, though perhaps it shouldn’t. Whatever else could be said of his childhood, he was at least fortunate in his education. He knew that not everyone had access to those same opportunities.
It was just that Nelda seemed so… capable. She’d sized his abilities up in seconds and used that information to talk down a mob and then led them through the ruined temple of Eothas without hesitation. It had never even occurred to him that she couldn’t read.
Later, he would learn of her abduction and a youth lost to slavery. But in that moment he tried to stop his thoughts from showing on his face, held out his hand, and said; “if I may?”
Nelda handed the letter over. “Thank you,” she said, and from the relief in her tone it was clear that she wasn’t just thanking him for reading it, but for not making her feel awkward about it.
—
It became a habit after that.
Any bloodied scrap of paper, any words painted on a wall, any interesting looking tome, and she looked to him to read it, and Aloth… liked it. He liked being trusted like that, that she turned to him.
She wouldn’t always need him to do this, Aloth knew. She was learning new words every day, especially now that she had access to a library.
But for now, he liked it.
And then late one night Nelda woke up gasping while he was on watch. She sat up and curled in on herself, her crescent-shaped horns pressed to her knees, her breathing so unsteady he couldn’t tell for sure whether or not she was crying.
“A nightmare?” he asked quietly after a horrible, awkward moment when he watched her without knowing what to say. “Or a Watcher dream?”
“I can’t tell anymore,” she mumbled, and her voice was trembling. She was shivering although the night was warm.
“What can I do?” Aloth asked, hating to see her like that. She was looking worse every day. They all worried about her. He was worried about her.
“Could you talk to me?” she asked, her voice very small. “Or… just read to me. Just so I can think about something else for a bit?”
“I only have my grimoire on me,” Aloth said apologetically. “I can’t imagine you’d find that particularly interesting.”
“I don’t mind. I always like listening to you read,” Nelda told him, her head still pressed against her knees, but tilted so that one bright eye was looking at him.
Unaccountably flustered, he opened his grimoire and cast some light so he could read more easily. “Ah, if you like.” He began to read, doing his best to ignore Iselmyr’s cackling in his head, which only got louder the more at ease Nelda became.
And that became a habit too. Whenever Nelda had a bad dream, or became lost in her visions, he would read to her, and it always seemed to help. He liked that too.
He missed reading to her when he left Caed Nua.
—
The most surprising thing was not running into Nelda in the Deadfire. It wasn’t that she was carrying a bow instead of a pollaxe, or that she was accompanied by an intelligent-looking antelope as tall as her shoulder with gore-encrusted horns, or that frankly she looked like she was weak enough to be knocked down by a strong breeze, although all those things were truly surprising.
It was that when she found Oderisi’s notes that she read them herself.
It shouldn’t have surprised him, of course. She had been well on her way to learning to read properly the last time he saw her.
But it did. She saw it in his face and smiled impishly at him, her serious expression suddenly dissolving. “I’ve been practising.”
“I can tell,” he answered, and smiled back at her. He was truly glad to see her again. And if part of him was a little disappointed that she didn’t need him to read to her any longer, well, no one else had to know.
—
Aloth woke slowly, not knowing what had disturbed him until he reached out and found that Nelda wasn’t there. He had become very accustomed to sharing a bed with her, so much so that her absence woke him.
However, she hadn’t gone far. She was sat in the window seat of her cabin, staring out over the waves.
“The gods again?” he asked, and she started and looked back at him.
“They never have anything nice to say, either,” she said, trying to joke but not quite managing it. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
He sat up, looking at her in concern. “What can I do?” he asked her, and then in an attempt to cheer her up, added; “I can read to you, if you like.”
To his surprise Nelda ducked her head, flustered. “I’ve missed you reading to me,” she admitted, and Aloth found himself smiling.
“I’m always happy to read to you,” he told her. “Any time you like. Come back to bed?”
Nelda got up with a laugh and tucked herself back into bed, resting against his shoulder, her head turned so her horns didn’t scratch him. Aloth picked up his book from the bedside table and began to read to her, perfectly content.