Chapter Text
The long, stretching days of travel were not nearly as tiresome as expected.
Even after two weeks on the road, you were still as fiercely determined as you were at the start to reach Ashford Meadow in time for the grandiose tournament occurring there. Luckily, you had not set off on your journey completely alone. Your travel companion had wiry gray hair and trotted beside you on four stout legs. Her name was Old Lady, a grizzled donkey you had known since you were small. She was dependable, robust, and of easy temperament—as worthy a palfrey as any, even if she was not a horse in truth. She carried a small saddlebag upon her back, trotting happily with the task of a lighter load for she was accustomed to lugging far heavier things.
You traveled modestly, your possessions few in number.
The saddlebag contained extra clothes, a bedroll, limited camping equipment, and half a bar of soap. You wore a simple green dress made of linen that hung loosely on your form to allow for movement, as well as a belt and sturdy boots both made of faded leather. The garments were not at all fashionable, but they were sufficient for walking far distances and that was all that was really needed of them. You weren’t much for accessories either, only keeping practical articles on your person: a threadbare knapsack slung over your shoulder to hold miscellaneous items, a dagger hilted at your side to ward off danger, a waterskin to quench your thirst, and a coin purse dangling from your belt—mostly empty save for four silver stags and twelve coppers.
You hoped you would never need your dagger for anything more than cutting up fruit or twine or whittling wood for camp. Its feeble build provided you little comfort, for what use was a tiny dagger against a pack of wolves or a stronger man? Still, you could be wily when you wanted to, unafraid to use any means necessary to protect yourself and Old Lady.
Beyond the dirt road underneath your feet lay a vast horizon of the countryside’s rolling hills and distant rocky mountains. The undulating landscape of soft grass was littered with oak trees and shrubbery, a patchwork of greens and browns. The unpaved road cut straight through the terrain and went on for miles, empty of any other travelers but you and Old Lady. You knew, though, that this was still a road frequently traveled, judging by the numerous footprints, hoofmarks, and wheel ruts deeply imprinted across it. You too left your mark among the raw earth, your boots crunching against its gritty texture and kicking up dust, just like all the migrants who had before you. After a few hours, your footsteps grew heavy and your back grew sore with the exertion of walking for so long. Even so, your spirit was strong and undeterred—physical weariness of the body would not stop you.
One resounding command drove you forward, settled deep in your heart.
“Go to the tourney,” your mother had whispered, her voice hoarse. Her body was weak in those final moments as she lay on her deathbed, but her entreaty to you was strong. “Make your name known there and carve out a place for yourself in this world, my darling girl.”
After she took her last breath you had sobbed for nearly three days straight. When the tears had finally run dry, when you were left with only swollen eyes and a sniffled nose, you packed your things and obeyed her final request. Leaving everything you knew behind was not quite an easy task.
A quaint cottage was what you called home, on a fairly large parcel of land in a far southern corner of The Reach. It was a favorable location, close to the seaside with fertile soil and moderate climate. A small garden and barn abutted the cottage, which provided a place of hard work and productivity. The garden was your mother’s pride and joy, but you spent most of your time in the barn. There you had raised and tended to livestock. Cows, chickens, and sheep yielded milk, eggs, and wool you could sell in a nearby town for a pretty penny.
It was a sustainable life, but without much luxury, led by the simple platitude to only buy what was needed to get by.
As you had grown older under the cottage’s thatched roof—when you had noticed the hardships of others far less lucky than you—you had begun to wonder how your mother originally came into such a fortunate possession of all that land and its amenities. You felt a bit undeserving of it, for the both of you were neither noble nor wealthy. Quite the opposite, really.
Every time you asked, she would brush you off with the same terse words.
The land was inherited from a family member.
But your mother had no family that you knew of.
It was only ever just you and her.
Over time, you stopped asking and you learned that you were not to ask about her past either. Her life’s stories were sealed tightly away from you, the path to them like a vast uncrossable ocean. It was not until her last day in this world that she finally revealed everything to you. But the quenching of your long-held curiosity did nothing to make the sting of your mother’s death hurt any less.
What use did you have of the truth of your home’s origins if you were leaving it all behind anyway?
The cottage reminded you of your mother, but your mother was gone. It was now only an empty shell, where a past life was lived never to be relived again. Just as your mother had urged you, it was high time you flew the nest.
You sold the land and livestock, except for your donkey, to a local lord. The transaction brought you quite a hefty sum, but your coins had since dwindled from the start of your journey. Perhaps it may have been unwise to have blown most of your money staying at inns every night, but it was better than risking an encounter with the dangers that lurked in the dark.
To be quite honest, even if death and the shocking revelation of your mother’s past was what prompted your journey, you were invigorated to finally explore the world beyond your quiet cottage. This was your first adventure of, hopefully, many more to come. You felt a profound sense of pride to have made it so far already by yourself.
Here, on this dirt road, you were free.
The afternoon breeze blew through the trees, eliciting an acoustic sound of rattling leaves that rang pleasantly in your ears. There was a clear blue sky above—thank the Gods—a welcome reprieve from the last few days of relentless rain. Even if the arduous trek to Ashford had failed to deplete your tenacity, you had grown quite sick of the rain. You were sure that you had encountered more precipitation in your time on the road than you had ever seen in your entire life. An older and more frail traveler would likely have dropped dead had they been forced to encounter that kind of oppressive weather.
The Stormlands must be quite the dreary place, then, if it was truly named after its climate.
What if, by the end of the tourney, you decided to make your name and place there? You were not sure that you could survive a life steeped in that sort of gloom. But you had yet to even reach Ashford, so the question of your future home was a problem to solve for another day.
By eveningfall, you happened upon a small town.
It was quiet, defined by thick stone walls of gray and half-timbered houses with jettied upper stories and tiled roofs. Lanterns and torchlight illuminated the winding cobblestone streets, leading to an empty courtyard. Further down, the street ended at a modest inn and its adjoining stables. The homely building stood out like a beacon of salvation, a golden glow pouring from its windowpanes to indicate the warmth and sanctuary to be found inside.
Without a moment’s hesitation, you decided you would make your stay at the inn for the night, until sunrise. The sky was darkening quickly already, eager to usher in the twilight hours, and the eerie sound of howling wolves in the distance had begun to pervade the air. Even if your coin purse suffered for it, it was much safer to sleep sheltered by four walls with a hot meal in your belly than outside, unprotected in the cold.
After all, Ashford was only a day’s ride away—time would not quite be wasted in stopping a bit for comfortable rest.
Old Lady’s hooves clicked upon the cobblestone floor, the sound bouncing off the surrounding storefronts, as you led her by her reins to the stables. The ground turned to dirt again there, where her hooves made only soft padding thuds. There was no stable boy around to tend to her, so you tied up her reins yourself and made sure she was comfortable in her stall. You gave her a kiss on her head, tufts of gray fur soft against your lips, and a handful of barley before you parted from her for the night.
By the time you returned outside, the sky had gone pitch black.
As you made your way to the inn, the night welcomed itself in full force. Thankfully, the howling of wolves had dissipated, replaced only with the soft chirping of crickets and the distant bleating of local livestock. A cloud passed above and revealed a large silvery moon that bathed the world in its ethereal glow. A blanket of cool, crisp air settled among the darkness, which brought a profound sense of stillness. Timeworn facades of the town’s buildings reflected the dancing gold of torchlight, rooted in place like silent sentinels.
Then, an unexpected groaning sound disturbed the peaceful hush of night, echoing from a dark alleyway between the inn and the stables
Suddenly, a man emerged from the shadows, swaying on wobbly long legs.
You watched, dumbfounded, as he stumbled his way forward, tripped, swayed, and fell out onto the street in front of you in a flurry of red and gold. He surely would have knocked into you and took you down with him had you not reflexively stepped backwards in surprise. You cocked your head down towards the ground and saw him laid out on his stomach at your feet, hands curling against the cobblestones for purchase.
Inwardly, you felt a bit sorry that you had not attempted to catch the stranger or steady him before he fell. He looked like such a poor, helpless creature sprawled out on the cold floor the way he was. You felt compelled to come to his aid, the urge tugging fiercely at your heart against your better judgement.
You were reminded, then, of your mother. She always thought you to be doomed by your empathy. Her voice whispered in your head warning you to choose your good deeds wisely, imploring you not to waste yourself on lost causes.
This world is void of human kindness, she used to say.
But maybe, you thought, that is why I must supply it.
Slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, you crouched to your knees beside the man. Luckily, he didn’t look to pose much of a threat to anyone in his pitiful condition. You hovered for a moment, unsure of how to take the best course of action.
First, you had to make sure he had not simply just dropped dead.
“Excuse me,” you prodded softly. “Are you alright?”
The man let out a weak grunt and babbled something unintelligible, muffled by the cobbles.
Aha! So he was alive!
You warily turned him over, and scanned his body for any injuries.
He wore a damask mantle of velvet over a long gold tunic stained in red all over the front. You startled at the sight, mistaking the stains for blood at first, but calmed when you realized that it was just wine. The shimmery black sleeves of his chemise jutted out from the armholes of his mantle, lined with ornate beading and the cuffs crusted with wine stains too. Belts of fine leather wrapped around his waist where you noticed a dagger hanging from his left side, sheathed and haphazardly tucked between the belts. The dagger was an opulent thing—far better than your own—its hilt made of pearly white ivory and gold.
With garments of such high quality, you surmised he was a lordling of some sort. A very drunk lordling.
“Come, my lord, let’s get you up,” you implored, as you looped your arms around his torso and pulled him upwards off the street.
The stranger grumbled something unintelligible again—possibly sounding out the consonants of the word ‘dragon’—but did not make any move to fight your attempt to help him.
His body was limp, moldable. You fashioned his arm over your shoulders and wound your right arm around his waist to secure him to your side. You succeeded in heaving him forward a few feet, however that was but a small victory. It was a struggle to get any further for he was so much taller than you. Without even making it another step, his body leaned sideways, pulling away from you and toward the street again, forcing your shoulder down uncomfortably beneath his weight. You tried in vain to push onwards again, but your grip on him was slipping. Breaths came heavier and muscles began to burn with the strain.
Frustration took hold of you, shooting through your veins like wildfire.
You had quite enough of this.
“I cannot drag you like this alone!” you exclaimed, trying to rouse the stranger from his drunken stupor. “If you do not intend to use those long legs of yours, then I will drop you right back where I found you!”
The man suddenly turned to look at you, as though only just realizing someone had been beside him all this time guiding his movements.
His body stiffened at first as he tried to make sense of his whereabouts—as he tried to make sense of you. He gazed down at your feet, then slowly upwards, openly observing your form, his mind turning as hard as it could in its intoxicated state. Once his inspection was sufficient enough, he relaxed. If he had any objections to your aid, he did not voice them.
Then his face loomed closer, his nose almost bumping into your own.
At such a short distance, you could smell the strong, acrid scent of alcohol on his breath. Icy blue eyes cut through the curtain of tangled sandy-blonde hair that hung over his face, and once they caught yours you were left completely disarmed.
You had never been so taken by a pair of eyes before. For a fleeting moment, beneath the flickering torches—when the orange embers glinted upon them just right—his irises seemed to shine a deep violet. The changing color stole your breath away and your fingers tightened unconsciously around his waist.
Alas, it could only be a mere illusion. A result of the low light on the street and your weariness from a long day of travel.
Finally, the stranger spoke to you.
“How odd,” he laughed dryly, voice slurred. “I went out to take a piss. Now I’m here with you. Must have… must have lost my way.”
“Perhaps you should not have indulged so heavily,” you remarked, unable to conceal your judgment.
The stranger let out a grunt of disagreement.
“I still dream. Perhaps I should have indulged more,” he murmured thickly.
What a peculiar thing to say, you thought.
You did not voice your perplexity, though, for you were beginning to lose your breath from the burden of holding him upright all this time.
The stranger sensed your fatigue and adjusted himself. He clung closer to you, distributing his weight more evenly so that he was no longer dragging you both toward the ground. In an instant, the strain on your shoulder finally eased and you released a heavy sigh filled with profound relief. He found his legs—at long last—and began to move them of his own accord. His maneuvers were clumsy and stilted, but nonetheless you were grateful that you did not have to drag him the full distance to the inn all by yourself anymore.
Trudging forward was much quicker with your combined efforts, and you both soon reached the large wooden door of the inn. You raised your free hand and pushed through the heavy oak, the door creaking as it opened. Together, you stumbled inside.
The place was held together by large beams of timber, quite aged with ivy tendrils hanging through the cracks in the ceiling. The common room was completely empty, all its potential patrons probably gone to the tourney. A small hearth crackled by the entrance and provided decent heating to the space, a welcome change from the cold air outside. Wooden barrels of wine stood in every corner and miscellaneous pots, jugs, ceramics, cutlery, bits and bobs littered any available surface.
You guided the stranger to a table at the far end of the room and sat him down.
He landed ungracefully upon a bench of elm, with a heavy thud and the seat squeaking in protest beneath his weight. He groaned and leaned over the table at an awkward angle, head bowed and almost touching the wooden surface. Long, lanky limbs once again went limp, compromised by his excessive drinking. You sat down beside him, your movements more mindful than his, and attempted to prop him upright. Hands grasped at the smooth velvet of his mantle, pulling him into better posture. Once you made sure he was steady, you turned him toward you by the shoulders to examine his condition.
Without thinking much of it, you brought both your hands up and gently brushed his hair away from his face.
“There you are,” you whispered softly, as you tenderly smoothed the tangled locks from his forehead. Any remaining stray strands were tucked carefully behind his ears too.
With his face finally uncovered, you took him in properly, studying him beneath the low glow of candlelight.
Your gaze roamed eagerly over his visage, captivated by the striking features found there. The Gods had given him a tall, straight nose and thick, heavy brows—deeply angular shapes that cast shadows over the hollowed spaces beneath them—creating the contours of a dashingly regal face. His skin was pale as porcelain, faintly sallow and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and his lips were shiny and stained a deep pink from wine. Sparse freckles dotted the bridge of his nose and stretched across his cheeks, hardly visible had you not been looking so closely. Coarse blonde stubble gathered along his sharp jaw and over the charming dimple in his strong chin. Dark red circles rimmed under his eyes, which accentuated those shining irises of enigmatic color you’d already been acquainted with out on the street.
Even in his haggard state, he was undeniably handsome.
His mouth hung slightly agape as he stared at you, utterly transfixed. Perhaps he was taking the same liberty, too, studying your features in the wavering candlelight. It was the way he stared that disarmed you the most, beholding you as though you were something beautiful, something sacred.
A thought struck you all at once—you must be wearing the same dazed expression yourself. You shook yourself from it, snapped your mouth shut, and looked instead at the wall. It was not becoming of a common woman to gaze so openly above her station at a high lord in such a way.
You cleared your throat awkwardly and attempted conversation, if only to distract yourself.
“Are you alright, my lord?” you asked, eyes averted.
“As fine as I could be.” He swallowed, then raised his voice toward the kitchen adjoining the common room—probably where the innkeeper resided. “But I am in need of more wine!”
“I am not so sure that is a good idea,” you murmured.
“Nonsense,” he snorted. “I pay the woman well. She must bring me wine. I cannot bear the dreams.”
Again with the dreams…
“Well, I shall bring you water,” you insisted. “I do not know how it fares against dreams, but you need it more than wine—and you do not have to pay me for it.”
Without a moment of hesitation, you took your waterskin from your belt and brought it to his lips. You wrapped the fingers of your free hand gently around his chin and tipped his head up with care. When you nodded at him to encourage him to drink, he did.
He was pliant to your every gesture and simply stared up at you, body gone slack as he sipped from the waterskin. His expression held vulnerability and wonder—raised brows and wide glistening eyes searching for yours. Your fingers traveled upward from his chin to his jaw, leaving featherlight touches against his face, a silent praise for his obedience.
The tender ministrations placated him, as if it were a comfort he never imagined himself worthy enough to have.
Once he had finished all the water, you released his face from your grip and tucked your empty waterskin away. Your fingers tingled strangely at the loss of his skin beneath yours. It had been so soft and his stubble had prickled in an oddly pleasant way.
When your gaze lifted back up to him, he was still staring openly at you.
Despite yourself, you stared back.
There you both sat, two strangers in an empty inn gazing upon each other for what felt like hours when it surely could not have been more than a few seconds.
A longing feeling took hold over you. You longed to be closer to him. You did not know why. It may be that the same feeling took hold over the stranger too, for he leaned in closer—his face scarcely a hair’s breadth away from yours—too drunk to consider how he invaded your space.
“You are kind to help a man such as I, my lady,” he whispered reverently. “You are a lovely, lovely dream.”
His expression shifted then, sad and haunted.
“Surely not a dream that belongs to me. Mine are filled only with death and despair.”
Then, suddenly, his lids grew heavy upon his eyes and he passed out.
His head fell against your shoulder, a tangled nest of blond hair tickling your chin. The warmth of his body against yours was not unwelcome and you could not find the effort within you to push him away. At a loss of what else to do, you simply let him lie unconscious at your side and pondered upon the encounter.
What strange things the man had uttered.
In what little he spoke to you, a notable bit of it was dedicated to his dreams.
You had never thought much of dreams. They were just illusions of the mind, nothing more. The real, waking world demanded too much of your focus and attention, and you had little use of wondering about the fleeting fantasies that pervaded your slumber. So why was this man so concerned about his?
You figured, perhaps, only rich lordlings were afforded the time and boredom to worry about such silly matters—for the commoners like you never had the luxury.
“Never you mind him, dear,” a woman said behind you. “How can I service you?”
You had been so engrossed in your thoughts that you had not heard the woman—presumably the innkeeper—approach you, so when she spoke she startled you. Her voice had a blunt edge to it, which you figured was perfect for commanding others to do chores around the inn and stables.
You looked up to see her, a round-faced woman in drab clothing. Her hair was tied up in a tattered scarf and she wore a shaggy robe over a dirty apron. She was holding a cup of freshly poured wine and set it down on the table in front of the stranger. No doubt she had heard the man’s loud request to the kitchen earlier and came to fulfill it.
She stared at you expectantly as you regarded her newfound presence, her features pinched in impatience and the aged lines of her face deepening.
Oh. Right. She had asked you a question.
You looked back down at the stranger snoring softly on your shoulder. A cool dribble of drool had begun to collect on the collar of your dress.
“I came to his aid. I found him on the street in a drunken haze,” you explained, rather dumbly for that was not what she had asked you.
“I do not doubt that. This is the fourth time that man has passed out today, and he only ever asks for wine. He pays in golden dragons, so I do not care to question it. Now...” The innkeeper sighed deeply, leveled you with a pointed look that reminded you of your mother when you misbehaved, then repeated the question you still had yet to answer. “How can I service you?”
Right, yes. Why were you here?
The encounter with the drunken stranger had left you soft and unguarded. But you had matters at hand, and you needed to get a hold of yourself. You had one purpose—reach Ashford—and in a world like this one, you could not let a man become a distraction and affect you so.
“I would like a room for the night and a hot meal,” you replied, voice firmer now, less dazed.
When you set your posture straighter, the stranger slid off your shoulder toward the table. A pang of regret hit you at the loss of his warmth.
The innkeeper plainly stated her available accommodations. “Most of my rooms are empty, so you can have your pick of the lot. The most spacious room is above the stables on the upper floor. I can prepare lamb roasted with a crust of herbs for you, if you’d like.”
The room above the stables and a plate of roasted lamb sounded as fair a bargain as any. You assented to both and paid the required coins, the cool metal clinking softly as it fell into the innkeeper’s palm. The scent of cooked meat soon filled the air, rich and savory, setting your mouth to water and your stomach grumbling. When the meal was brought, you dug in heartily and the stranger remained asleep on the table beside you, none the wiser.
Once your hunger was satisfied, you prepared to retire to your lodgings. You got up carefully, so as to not disturb the stranger’s slumber, then crossed the common room to the stairs. At the foot of them you paused—only for a moment—casting one final glance at the disheveled figure slumped over the table before ascending.
The aged, wooden steps creaked in protest beneath your tread, almost as though to tell you to return to him.
You had climbed halfway when a sudden clatter shattered the quiet, followed by a sharp curse of ‘Seven Hells!’ from below.
Your steps faltered as you looked toward the sound.
Back in the common room, the stranger had woken with a start. In some clumsy attempt to take stock of his surroundings, he had flung his arms wide, sending the cup in front of him tumbling over. Wine spilled across the table in a wave of crimson.
“Oh gods,” he muttered with a humorless chuckle. “What a mess I have made.”
He called out once more toward the kitchen for another cup, voice rough and slurred, before he slumped forward and collapsed across the table—likely unconscious again. His face landed squarely in the spreading pool of wine. It did not seem to trouble him, though. Perhaps he was right at home there.
A strange disappointment tightened within your chest as you watched the pitiful scene unfold.
The man’s disorderly manner, the careless forgetfulness of it, made something abundantly clear.
Upon waking, he had not even remembered how he came to sit at that table—which meant he had not remembered you. He had not remembered how you picked him up off the street nor the strange words he uttered to you. He had not remembered the way he looked upon your face, as though you were something wondrous, and stirred within you a feeling you had never known.
All of it had slipped cleanly away.
Some foolish part of you wished he had called for you instead of the wine. You imagined the words he could have spoken. "Where is the woman that helped me?" But no such question came.
Such is life, you lamented, as bitterness settled low in your chest. We meet handsome strangers we are never meant to meet again… and in time, we forget them.
With a quiet sigh, you continued your ascent and disappeared into the upper floor. As you trudged wearily through the dim hall to your lodgings, you did not witness what continued in the common room below.
You did not see any of it at all.
The man’s eyes blinked open once more.
They searched blearily to his right with restless urgency, seeking the sweet warmth that had so recently steadied him. A crease formed between his brows when he found the seat beside him cold and empty. A slow, confused hurt settled into his expression. He could have sworn that a kind, beautiful woman was just sitting there.
His right hand reached outward, pawing at the empty space, grasping for the woman and finding nothing. After a fruitless search, it landed hard against the table and dragged through the spilled wine, spreading the stain beneath his ruinous touch. A low, wounded sound left him and his shoulders sagged in defeat as he was hit by something that felt dangerously close to loss.
How pathetic of him to think that she was real.
Only his dreams of dragonfire and death were meant to come true—not a lovely dream such as her.
At last, he yielded to his haunted slumber once more, his cheek resting in the spill of his own making.
You lay sprawled upon a bed stuffed with straw, restless and ill at ease.
Nearly an hour had passed since you withdrew to your lodgings, yet sleep still continued to evade you. The pallet beneath you provided more comfort than bare earth, yet was too uneven to invite your slumber. The room was sizable—just as the innkeeper had promised—but such an excess of space unsettled you. You had grown accustomed to finding refuge in narrower quarters, within walls that pressed closed and cradled you. The windows were cracked open to allow circulation, but they admitted much more into your chambers than just cool air.
Crickets trilled beyond the shutters. A dog barked somewhere across the small town and was answered by another. Local livestock bleated in their pens. Wind whispered and shuffled through the leaves. Torches along the street crackled and hissed.
The night refused to grant you a quiet moment of peace.
The darkness did not sleep, so neither did you.
The thin walls and floorboards were the worst feature of the lodgings, only adding to the night’s cacophony. They were composed of rotted oak, darkened and chipped with age. Oak that held no loyalty to fostering a hushed atmosphere.
The floorboards were laid well enough so that nothing could collapse through, yet narrow cracks ran between the planks—cracks that carried the life of the stables below upward whether you willed it or not. Just moments ago, a stable boy had tied up what sounded to be at least three horses. Their hooves stomped upon dirt and shook the earth, their nickers and snorts reverberated in their stalls, and their teeth steadily ground against oats in a dull, unending rhythm.
All the equine commotion kept you steadfast in the waking world.
Beyond your door, the inn did not sleep either. Just like the floorboards, the thin walls acted as a poor barrier for a peaceful slumber. Cups clattered together as they were cleaned away in the common room below, the sound floating up the stairs and slipping right through the feeble wood. Small, hurried feet pattered along the hall, the thumping sounds invading your space—the innkeeper’s children, no doubt, sent scurrying to finish their chores.
Every step, every murmur, every careless movement found its way to you.
You could hear everything.
Another patron entered the inn, the heavy door creaking open and then slamming shut.
His voice joined the din, low and roughened. Quite impressively, he requested two full meals for himself. He must have been a man of great appetite or great size—or both. Heavy wood struck against wood, as though some broad object had been set down upon a bench. A shield, perhaps? Words muffled through the walls as the innkeeper spoke of the tourney, critical of the knights who were bound for it. But if the patron truly did carry a shield, then he was a knight bound for it too.
Rest slipped further from your grasp when you heard the drunken stranger awaken again, disturbed by the arrival of the new patron.
Without fail, the mumbling of his dreams clung stubbornly to his tongue. A bench scraped across the floor and a stair railing creaked as he retired to his own lodgings. His trek up the stairs was loud and clumsy, harsh footfalls causing the wooden steps to groan under the force. He lurched into the hall and staggered uneasily through it, making a ruckus as he went.
A shoulder scraped along the wall. Then a sudden thud of a body fell against your door without warning. Impatient hands tried the latch, rattling the rusted metal.
You went still.
The handle twisted once, then twice. He let out a frustrated curse when he found it was locked, and let out another when he realized his mistake. He was not at the door of his own room. A long, rough groan followed, heavy with drink and confusion. Why had he been so drawn to a room that was not his?
His steps resumed, their rhythm stilted and uneven, until they faded at the far end of the hall. A door thudded shut and silence settled.
He never found you.
A few moments passed before you could finally breathe easy again.
You could not imagine what you might have done had the latch yielded, had the door given out under his weight. Quite honestly, you had no appetite for such fanciful speculation anymore. If he had stumbled upon you he would not have known you, and you could not pretend otherwise. There would have been no recognition in his enigmatic eyes, only the glaze of confusion and wine, and there would have been no happy reunion, only awkward intrusion.
Wishful thinking had left you, your mind and spirit completely drained from the night’s events.
You lay once again sprawled upon a bed stuffed with straw, even more restless and ill at ease than before.
Eventually, you registered two voices rising from the stables below, cutting through the split boards. The first voice was high and squeaky; the second was thick and vaguely familiar. Upon listening closer, you surmised they belonged to a young boy and the patron from before—whose muffled words had confirmed him to be a knight.
“I’m a knight, I’ll have you know.”
The two continued to converse and, since sleep still had yet to claim you, you saw no other choice but to listen.
You caught the key bits of their discourse quite clearly.
“Take me with you, ser…” the boy asked, his squeaky tone raising with hope.
The boy and the knight’s voice weaved in and out of the cracks of the floorboards, some words indistinct at first, until one name carried clean and bright through the wood.
“—you could bring me to Ashford, I could squire for you, ser—”
Ashford.
The name rang straight to your core and bade you rise just like a supper bell. You were pulled upright before you knew you had even moved. From the way the boy pleaded with the knight, it seemed he wished to get to the tourney just as fiercely as you did.
You leaned forward, scarcely aware you had shifted halfway off your pallet, while you listened to the knight rebuff the boy.
“—clout in the ear. Fill me a sack of oats. I’m off for Ashford. Alone.”
The knight’s voice was firm, final. Yet when he spoke again, something in his tone betrayed him, softened with honest sympathy.
“Look, lad, I promise you… You’re better off not squiring for the likes of me.”
A solemn quiet suspended between them as the boy wordlessly helped the knight prepare his horses for travel.
Then impulse seized you. Bare feet struck the aged wood planks as you leapt off the pallet and towards the window. You leaned close against the panes, if only just to get a good look at the boy and the knight as they left the stables.
The street lay open beneath you. Directly below, the stable doors parted. A tall broad-shouldered man stepped out and mounted a white palfrey on strong, thick arms. Two other horses trailed behind him, followed by a stubborn-looking boy no older than eight or nine.
The man was dressed quite plainly, with only a belt of rope to hold his scabbard. A battered shield was strapped to his back, the only thing to distinguish him as a knight, bearing the flaking painted sigil of a winged chalice. The boy wore a long tunic—far too long for his tiny body—that dragged upon the floor, the hem stiff with dried mud. His limbs were skinny and his head was completely bare and pale, much like an egg.
You watched the scene unfold before you with avid curiosity.
The knight flicked a single shiny copper toward the boy, the metal chiming as it flew through the air, but the boy made no move to catch it nor did he stoop to claim it once it landed on the dirt floor. He simply looked at it then looked back up. Once the knight rode away from view and the hoofbeats faded, the boy was left alone staring out into the empty darkness of night. His shoulders drooped dejectedly and he continued to gaze after the knight who was already long gone, showing plainly his desperation to leave the inn.
All he wanted was to go to Ashford.
You understood him, you hungered for Ashford too.
You had overheard him tell the knight that his mother was dead.
The knowledge settled quietly within you. Perhaps you were both alike. Two strays who had lost their mother and were left only with lofty aspirations, looking toward the same distant meadow to pursue them.
Just as you were compelled to help the drunken stranger, you felt the same fierce urge tugging deep at your heart to help the boy. Before you could temper the urge, you pushed your window open wider and called out to him.
“Boy!” you shouted into the street. “Have I heard you right? Do you wish to attend the tourney at Ashford Meadow?”
The boy’s pale head snapped up at once to the sound of your voice. He squinted into the dimness, trying to make out your form in the window above. When he saw only a lone young woman, his head tilted. He was quiet as he assessed you, and for a moment it seemed he was never going to respond to you at all.
Perhaps he did not think it clever to talk to a woman he did not know. Perhaps, to him, you looked like a lunatic. You certainly felt like one, sometimes.
“Yes,” he answered at last, his voice holding an air of confidence beyond his years. Then he went silent again. He looked as though he were contemplating between telling a truth or telling a lie. You were unsure which of the two he chose when he opened his mouth to speak again. “I am to squire for a knight there.”
Satisfied enough with his answer, you decided to extend your aid to him. He needed you and he seemed to be harmless. Furthermore, it would be quite refreshing to have a companion on the road besides Old Lady.
It was so simple a decision that you never considered how it would twist your fate forever.
“I depart for Ashford at dawn,” you announced. “You may join me if you’d like, I would not mind the company.”
The boy vigorously nodded his bald head once, then twice to show his assent.
“Meet me by that stall at first light.” You pointed down toward the one that housed Old Lady. “Else I shall leave without you.”
You did not wait for the boy to reply before you shut the window with a muted thud. Crossing back to the pallet, you felt the weight of the day settle fully at last—limbs heavy and lids drooping. The straw gave out a reedy sigh when you collapsed into it, but you were too far gone to notice.
All at once, sleep finally claimed you.
The welcomed slumber brought with it a swirl of striking features. Fleeting flashes of blue-violet irises and hair the color of sun-warmed sand danced behind your eyelids. A voice whispered, soft and reverent, echoing into the dim corridors of your subconscious mind.
You are a lovely, lovely dream.
The phrase repeated over and over until the steady rhythm of its consonants lost their edges and blended into a melodic song.
Below, the boy bent down to retrieve the knight’s copper from the ground. His small, nimble fingers closed around it, the cool metal pressing into his palm. He turned it over and studied its form, foreign to him, for he never held one before.
He had no need of coin—never had in his entire life.
But perhaps you had need of it, so he pocketed the coin to give to you in the morning.