Chapter 17 #2
“You know I hate this, right?” I did and didn’t.
I was curled in close to the person I admired, to the person I begrudgingly but desperately liked, to the person, if I knew they wouldn’t report it back to the king, I might show the real me.
Maybe. But I was stuck… waiting. Add to that all the lies, and I was a muddle of conflicting feelings.
Aven rested their chin on the top of my head. “I know.”
A faint tumble of rocks sounded on the other side of the slide, followed by a muted cheer.
“That’s a good sign,” Aven said.
“Maybe.” I squirmed to unbend my knees slightly and fit my body better against theirs. After a few adjustments I was completely cozy and, with Aven’s body heat, quickly working my way toward warm. “Who knew Princet Aven was an incredible cuddler?”
“Just Aven,” they replied.
Curious. “I’ve noticed that you correct everyone when you can. Why is that?”
“Titles aren’t necessary on a quest,” Aven responded almost rotely. It echoed what they’d told Farrah when she arrived at the Simmer. But I could tell it wasn’t all there was.
“No, they’re not.”
They sighed deeply. “Also, sometimes folks get the title wrong, and it makes me uncomfortable.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize.” I’d always known Aven as Princet Aven. Their cousin, the heir, was Princet Avia. Another one of their cousins was Princess Avriel, and there were a few other princes and princesses in there. I’d never questioned any of their titles, and it was a shock to hear that some did.
“It’s fine,” they said quickly. “You didn’t know.”
“But now I do.”
They laughed. “Okay.”
I shifted so I could stare at the underside of their jaw.
“I can feel you staring at me,” they said, eyes fluttering shut.
“When I was younger, much younger, I tried to fit into the frame of prince or princess. And neither… felt right. Luckily for me, Avia was years older and far bolder than I could ever be and adopted ‘princet.’ Which made it easier for me to do the same.” They shifted.
“I’m aware that some of the court refer to me as the Pointless Princet.
” I winced when they said the nickname, the disillusionment that surrounded it.
“Once my cousins marry and potentially have children, there will come a time when I will be able to leave the castle and adventure or quest all the time and just be… me. But for now I am Princet Aven in court. And on quests I’m just Aven. ”
“Ah. Well, I like just Aven.” I panicked when realized what I’d just said. “I mean the name. Aven. It suits you.” Good save.
“Thanks.”
We lapsed into silence. The flickering of the torch played along the walls, the dips and grooves of the rocks, the lines of the shelving, even across the parchments and scrolls that had fallen to the ground.
“Do you think one of those parchments has a way out?” I asked, jerking my chin to where some had fluttered to the carpet.
“You literally can’t handle not having control of a situation, can you?”
I shrugged, the action causing Aven’s tunic to bunch slightly. “It’s a character flaw. I’m working on it.”
Aven laughed. “Fine. To occupy your time, tell me the story about your first quest.”
My whole body tensed. “Ha!” I said, far too loud for how close I was to them. “You know this story. You’ve heard it. Ancients, you were there.”
“I was attending court and saw you brought in. I didn’t witness what happened.”
“Well, you heard Lord Ethan tell the story. That’s what happened.”
“Okay. But I want to hear it in your own words.”
I froze. I thought back to the blank pages of my journal sitting on the table in my home. The unused inkwell. The desire to tell my own truth, to know my own self. And Aven… it sounded as if they wanted to know too.
I licked my lips. “My own words, huh?”
Aven nudged me. “Yes. It’ll be a good bedtime story.”
I laughed. But I relaxed further into them. And I told them.
“Zig and I were playing on our favorite hill outside of our village…”
I told Aven the whole story, every detail, because that day would forever be seared into my memory.
I told them of how twelve-year-old Zig and I had ventured out to our favorite little hill on a sunny day.
We rolled ourselves down the gentle incline, inhaling the sweet perfume of the flowers we crushed along the way.
We chased butterflies, and it didn’t take long for me to scrape my knees and get my dress dirty.
I was stung by a bee and cried a little over it, and Zig ran over to see if I was okay.
He removed the stinger and kissed my finger.
We were almost ready to head home for lunch when we heard a yell.
And a roar so loud, the earth shook with it.
A bear crashed through the tree line nearby, felling thick pines and oaks like they were twigs. It was the largest bear I’d ever seen.
“It was an Ursa,” Aven murmured.
“I know that now. I didn’t know it then.”
The bear’s brown-and-black fur was matted with blood, its claws as sharp as knives, and its curved yellow teeth were dripping with frothed saliva as it roared again. It was the most terrifying moment of my life.
The bear had been angered by the knights chasing it, and it raced toward us.
Zig ran one way, and I ran the other, and the bear ran after Zig.
When I realized, I turned around to find Zig had tripped.
So I picked up the first rock I could find and threw it as hard as I could, and it hit the bear on the side of the head.
Then it turned to me, roared so loud that the very air quaked, and charged.
Before it could attack me, Lord Ethan, on his white steed, burst from the forest with his sword drawn and stormed between me and the bear.
But he galloped too close. And with one swipe of its mighty paw, the bear unhorsed Lord Ethan and gravely injured his mount.
I ran over to the knight, thinking he’d protect me, and dropped to his side.
But he was injured and had lost his sword.
So I crawled on my hands and knees and found where his broadsword had fallen in the grass.
The bear charged at us, and without thinking, I grabbed the hilt and, still crouched on the ground, swung the blade around right as the bear attacked.
By a stroke of luck, the sword pierced through the bear’s heart as it fell on us to maul us. It collapsed on top of me, covering me completely.
Other knights arrived soon after to find Lord Ethan on the ground, his horse dead, and the Ursa unmoving. And when the five knights had managed to hoist the bear off Lord Ethan’s legs, they found me underneath, still clutching the sword in both my hands.
“You were covered in blood,” Aven said into my hair.
“I was. It was gross. My dress was ruined. I didn’t care, but my mother was livid.”
Aven chuckled.
“The group of knights who were in pursuit of the bear witnessed that I was under the Ursa, holding Lord Ethan’s sword. I learned that it had been terrorizing some farmers’ pigs and cows, eating them and leaving the carcasses, so the knights had been sent to kill it.”
“But you did instead.”
“I did instead. They plucked me from the ground, put me in front of one of the knights on a horse, and took off for the castle. Zig thought I had been kidnapped and ran home to tell our parents.”
“Poor Zig.”
“Poor me! I was terrified. I had to stand in front of the king and queen! And the knights told them of my supposed great deed, because I’d saved Lord Ethan from the Ursa!
” I waved my hands for emphasis. “They dubbed me Ellinore the Brave and then brought out a bouquet of flowers and this sack of gold. It was the most wealth I’d seen in my life. ”
“It was your reward.”
“It was the best thing to ever happen to my family. So I decided right then that I would go back and take on another quest. And I’ve been doing it ever since.”
“And Lord Ethan has harbored resentment toward you ever since as well.”
“That noticeable, huh?”
“I notice everything about… the quests.” They coughed.
“Right. I forgot that you know it all.”
“Not everything,” they said. “At twelve, you’d never held a sword, and merely a year later you defeated the Golden Dragon.”
My whole body went taut. “You sound as skeptical of my skills as Rylan!”
Aven laughed. “No, I don’t.”
“You do!” I accused. “You absolutely do.” I pointed at my own chest. “I trained! With knights!” That was partially true.
The squires at the nearby keep had taught me a few basic lessons and had always been up for a sparring session, especially when they knew they’d win.
“And I studied with… masters.” If being attentive during the jousting and sword matches at the castle counted, then that was also true.
“There was an entire year between those two events, you know.”
“Okay! I wasn’t disparaging you.”
“Yeah, sure,” I grumbled, crossing my arms beneath the drape of Aven’s cloak. I don’t know why it upset me. I knew I was not nearly good enough with a sword to defeat a dragon, but I could hold my own if absolutely necessary and all avenues of negotiation and/or fleeing had been exhausted.
Aven chuckled. “And now you’ve retired at the ripe old age of seventeen.”
I knocked my elbow into Aven’s ribs. “I know you don’t understand, but I finally finished what I had set out to do, which was give my parents a good life. And now I’m tired. Of it all.”
“I’m tired too,” Aven replied. “In a different way.”
I sighed. “Then we should rest.”
“We should.”
I know we both meant it metaphorically, but I was exhausted right then as well. And with Aven’s tacit permission, I snuggled closer.