My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  Daryan picked up her empty bottle and sniffed the lip. Seeming to not find whatever she was looking for, she placed it back down hard and poorly. The bottle tipped over and rolled in a circle which the Knight only scoffed at. "Your father," were the first two words out of her mouth as she watched her mistake roll close to the edge of the table and stop.

  Sneering, she turned over to Gavin, her eyes washed in hard tears. "I was there, during the war. I'd spot him, the great Commander Cullen in his blighted bear furred coat and armor of the Inquisition." Daryan's fingers ran up and down the balcony railing, her eyes boiling hard into nothing. "We'd fought, faced down a Maker damn dragon in the Wilds. Watched as our friends, our closest allies, people we'd trained with for a year or even more..."

  With a laugh, Daryan smacked her hand hard into the table, causing the weak support to buckle. It flipped over, the bottle tumbling to the ground but not breaking as it came to rest beside the upended table. "You can't know what it is to stand in battle and watch fire burn through the person to your left, the person on your right, and then skip right over you."

  He had no idea what to say. It was rather obvious that Gavin hadn't been in that war, nor any other. He was only 17 and trying to learn how to prepare himself for such an eventuality. This woman seemed to be blaming him for things from long before he was ever born.

  She snorted, her head tipped back to the sky while wine filled tears burbled out of her eyes. "And your father, that...sycophant Commander stood upon the hill watching, never caring. The fire never touched him." Daryan whipped her head over at Gavin and spat out, "He has no idea what war can cost a person. No idea the pain that never leaves."

  Gavin stumbled back a step at her look, while his mind traipsed back through a dozen or more memories. The first took hold when he couldn't have been more than four, a young child knocking on his parent's bedroom door asking his father to come play. All he caught was a burn of his father's eyes through the slit before the man vanished back into the shadows behind the locked door, cutting his son off.

  "Mummy," he cried, the tears never ending at the rejection, "daddy's being mean! He won't play."

  She'd curled him up into her arms, his mom smoothing down the massive hair Gavin used to have while she whispered, "Sweetheart, your dad has...bad days. He still loves you, he will always love you, but he has to be alone for awhile."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's..." He'd watched his mother extensively explain things to every inane question a young child could imagine, but for this she stumbled, a hand cupping her cheek upward to catch any errant tears. "He's, Daddy's not feeling good."

  "Kiss him and make it all better."

  "I wish that I could," her soothing, healing hands cupped against Gavin's forehead before she tucked him tight into a hug. "But your dad needs to rest. In time, he'll come out. He'll be better."

  With his mother's cooling kiss upon his forehead, a young Gavin leaped off the chair and nodded in satisfaction, "M'kay!"

  "Why don't you go find Honor and play with her for awhile," his mother always tried to usher him away so she could tend to his snarling father. It wasn't until a few years later that he began to understand and could even predict when his father's moods would turn foul. There was an increase in sneering, but the man never struck anyone, never yelled. He would simply vanish behind a door for a day, sometimes two or three. The only one who could see him was his wife, but every once in awhile, late at night Gavin would hear the most gut wrenching sobs drifting through the air.

  Snapping up higher, Gavin took in a deep breath. How dare she question his father's integrity, his decisions made to...to end a bad man. How dare she assume that he never suffered when there was hardly a month that passed without a dark day lost. It never vanished from his father, was never expunged fully, but Gavin would always be there -- wooden sword in hand, waiting for his Dad to emerge and play with him.

  "With all due respect, Ser," Gavin spat out, "you don't know a damn thing about my father." With trembling shoulders and clenched fists, Gavin dashed away from the drunk woman left to her bitter falsehoods.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Can't Win

  Forest to the left, river to the right, and here she was stuck in the middle with...her damn brother. Cailan somehow conned Myra into one of his marble games. He had three boards with various holes cut into them and was always grabbing people, promising to teach them the rules, the promptly trouncing whoever agreed to it. When she was younger she used to try and pocket the marbles when he wasn't looking.

  Older, wiser, and with far defter hands, Myra managed to sneak nearly half of Cailan's pieces into her pocket before he glanced up to find his math didn't add up. Sighing, he tipped back from the board perched upon the grass. "Give them up."

  He extended his palm leaving her with two options, either pretend she had no idea what he was talking about, or hand them over and face even more of suffering her brother's clobbering tactics. There was a third choice: hurl the entire wad of marbles into the trees and let him find them. With a sigh, Myra dug the marbles out of her pocket and began to place each one inside Cailan's hand. For a laugh, she started to count them aloud, rather proud of how many she snuck away before he noticed. Jorel sure would be.

  "You know," he sighed, "if you didn't want to play you could have said so."

  "Pretty sure I did. 'No, Cailan, no one wants to play with you because you cheat.'"

  "I do not cheat," his blue eyes blazed with indignity while he carefully returned each marble to its special place in the hierarchy.

  "Maybe not by breaking the rules, but your brain's all shoving beads on strings around and adding up numbers while the rest of us are struggling to remember which way the horsey moves."

  "There is no horsey..." He groaned, running a hand over his forehead. Funny enough, all of the Theirin children were well versed in chess. Rosie, because they thought it would assist in her princessly duties of sucking up to weird old guys that have to involve everyone in their hobbies before talking business. Cailan, because he was scary smart when left alone too long and people wanted to find something to distract him. Myra got into it because her other siblings did and she refused to be left behind. She wasn't very good, but she preferred it to this maths problem disguised as a game.

  When Cailan began to reset the board, Myra groaned, her fingers tugging on her cheeks to emphasize how much she did not want to be there. "If it is such a bother," he sighed, "why remain?"

  "Because there's nothing else to do either..." she waved a hand around at the dull scenery broken up only by dull diplomats wandering around the dull road. The highlight of their day was a couple of knights trying to chase a rabbit down on foot. Then Gavin got it with an arrow. Fun over. She wasn't certain if he didn't know that he was taking away their game, or if he did it on purpose. He was hard to read.

  Cailan snickered, his lips pursed as he tented his fingers together in thought. "I attempted to hide a small roach down the cleric's robe."

  "Really?" Myra sat up higher, far more interested in that, "What'd he do?"

  "Nothing. I said attempted because Rosamund caught me and gave me that 'I will send you back home' glare."

  Groaning, Myra slumped her head up to the sky. Rather than stare into the sun, she wrapped a hand over her eyes, "When did Rossie become such a killjoy?"

  "The way I remember, she always was, unless you were into stabbing and sword fighting."

  "Better than being all 'Now Myra, we must respect the beliefs of the people clearly fucking with us, for we are of noble blood.'"

  Her brother laughed at the impression, then slapped a hand into her arm before he too raised his voice higher. It climbed into such a nasal shattering range, it far surpassed Rosie's. "Dear brother, it is in your best interests to pay heed to the historical significance of....snooze! Like I said, eternal destroyer of fun. Maybe when she's been on the throne for a few decades or so she'll calm down."

  He threw the line away as if it w
as nothing, but Myra pursed her lips. Rosie was gunning hard to take that crown, not that either of them wanted it. The only person she had any competition with, aside from herself, was their dad... Trying to shake away the pain burning in the back of her head, Myra shot up to her legs.

  "Where are you going?" Cailan raised a hand to her. "We have a game to finish."

  "Find someone else," Myra sighed, "I need to stretch." Casting an eye up and down their little city of tents, she began to walk towards the center of it all.

  Behind her she heard her brother call out, "Ah, Lady Bryn. Would you care for a game?"

  She snickered a moment, wondering if she should rescue her friend, but it'd give Bryn something to do beyond washing socks. Without any real work ahead of her, Myra began to wander through the stand of tents. It was a bit funny to spot in the distance, piles of canvas wafting in the breeze as people scampered in and out around them. A few preferred the solitude of hiding away in their tiny sleeping quarters, but most wisely chose the open air before they finally moved on to the next stop.

  Ahead on the road was some other Bann, after they left another behind. Apparently the schedule was based upon who was more important, some Banns only getting a quick wave from the road before Rosie hightailed it out of there. When the rains kicked up for a half day and everyone was grateful to have free time to massage away their bunions and corns, only her sister had her face pressed to the glass, worried about the itinerary. Cailan was right, something massive crawled up her ass. Or maybe it was the incessant buzzing of the advisors in her ear. That was likely to drive anyone to the orderly and/or murderous side.

  While all the sleeping tents could comfortably hold two, and were usually jammed with three or four, Rosie's was vast. Fancy princess and all, it made sense. Plus she had all those drooling sycophants to provide for. There were more left behind in Denerim, leaving Myra to wonder just what they did without their princess they supposedly assisted. Then again, she wasn't certain they did anything when Rosie was around either. Her sister was far from an invalid, and there seemed to be an awful lot of cousins that needed pointless jobs.

  Shaking off the snarl in her lips as she thought back on far too many of the handmaidens, Myra turned to try and flag down Rossie. It was doubtful she'd have anything fun to do, but Myra might get a sense of when they were going to head out. A change of scenery would be nice, at least.

  The Princess' tent was flanked by two guards standing haphazardly outside, though it was hard to call anything outside. The side panels that made up walls of the tent were all rolled up to give the illusion that the thing was even greater than its small foyer size. Peering in, Myra spotted her sister reclining upon one of the traveling chairs while three of her handmaidens sat around. There was another one, a girl they picked up from one Bann to take to another, that Myra didn't know. But if she was hovering around the princess, she was probably a pain in the ass too.

  "Afternoon," Myra waved a hand at the guards whose eyes slid over to her before focusing back upon nothing. "Seen anything?" They remained clinging to their pikes, sweat percolating upon their brows but neither about to waver. "Right, well," Myra slapped both on the back, "if you spot a werewolf come and get me. I know how to handle them."

  As she stepped under Rosie's roof, she felt both guards whip their heads at her. She was mostly joking; she did know how to deal with werewolves, but they were unlikely to find any this far north. They weren't into the ancient forests yet. Walking carefully, Myra had to practically get down on her knees to make it under the low hang. Lucky Rossie was the perfect height for her tent, her hand wafting a fan back and forth before her face. There must have been a deal at the last merchant stall, as all the girls were waving the same.

  Myra was about to speak up and say hello, announce her presence as they fancily put it, when one of the handmaidens suddenly squealed. It sounded like a pig sitting on a stickpin, but the girl didn't leap to her feet in pain nor suddenly transform into pork. She did it again, then sighed, "A proposal?"

  "I know," Rosie rolled her eyes.

  "An honest to the Maker proposal, in front of everyone no less."

  Her sister groaned, the fan picking up speed, "It is quite the..."

  "Honor!" the instigator squealed anew. Myra leaned out and spotted that despicable pile of auburn hair. Evie. Should have named her Evile. Evily? Cursed one that delights in the torture of those below her. Whenever Rosie, Cailan, or their dad was out of earshot, she'd be the one to start dropping the word bastard or knife-ear with only a cold glance at Myra to tell her she knew she was there.

  Rosie seemed to delight in Evie the way she did the rest of her cousins, a small sigh and forced smile because they were family and her mom made her. But she was pissed about that Lord Dumbdumb's proposal, and bringing it up like this might just get Evie kicked out of the circle once and for all. Sliding squarely into place, Myra prepared herself for the oncoming show.

  "To receive your first proposal and only at age..." Evie paused and tapped a finger to her lips, "twenty four. That is a bit longer in the tooth for some, mind you. I think I was gifted mine when I was but fifteen by an older gentleman that found my fingers dainty as a statue's."

  Pervert. Probably wanted to chop her hands off and hang them on his wall. Myra paused in the thought, wondering if life with her mother had warped her in any way. Nah.

  "Fifteen?" that new girl gasped, Bann something. It started with an L, or was it a G? LG worked for her too.

  Evie lifted her chinless head and smiled, "Men were often confusing me for a full blooded woman, loving to tell me how well my body filled out." While Evie seemed to find it a fun anecdote, Myra shivered at the thought. Then her eyes darted down to her still waiting to fill in body. No way anyone would think she was a grown woman at 15, or now. Probably not even when she was 25.

  "Why did you turn him down?" Tess took up the talk. Myra didn't mind Tess. She was Rosie's friend -- the child of a noble from out west, and almost slathering in her loyalty to the princess. But she didn't make a thing out of her being a bastard the way the cousins would.

  Evie rolled her eyes, "His family was so uncouth, and land poor. I can do much better. Which, I assume, is why you turned down Lord Eldon."

  Snapping out of her thoughts, Rosie focused on her friends giggling about boys. "Yes, it... He does not have the right temperament to sit upon the throne."

  "Temperament?" Evie chortled, "Who cares about temperament? The only real question to ponder is if he has the right..." she folded her fingers into a fist and then slipped the middle one between a gap to form a part of the male anatomy she kept swinging around.

  "Maker's breath, Evie," Rosie sneered, "put that away. There are other matters to weigh beyond the breadth or scale of his..." Her sister's cheeks lit up bright red, the poised princess who could curse like a pirate when she was pissed finding the word penis impossible.

  With a cold chuckle, Evie folded her rude fingers back together and she cupped her chin upon them. "Words spoken by the uninitiated. That's all that matters in the end." Three women rolled their eyes, while Evie continued to try to impress upon them that she knew all there was to sex. After a lifetime of growing up with Lunet, Myra had to shove a fist in her mouth to keep from laughing.

  "If we could refrain from talking about..." Rosie began, when the LG girl spoke up.

  "I saw a boy once with a todger the size of a parsnip. Same color too. Thing was huge, like..." she held her fingers up to form a circle as wide around as Myra's forearm. "Screamed when I spotted it and ran away."

  Finding that hilarious, Evie began to delight in her tales of various sized penises she had thrust upon her, as if anyone wanted to hear about it. Tess, sensing her friend's annoyance at the topic did her best to break it apart. "Rosie can't choose without her father's say. She needs someone that can handle all the duties of supporting the crown."

  Her sister tipped her head in thanks to Tess, who less than subtly stuck her tongue out at Evie. Complete
ly unaware of the people trying to twist it away from her, Evie grabbed onto the newest topic with aplomb. "Yes, yes, must be able to greet people. Must not shit his pants at fancy dinners. Must be capable of speaking more than just his name."

  "It's not as simple as choosing a man off the street that I fancy," Rosie said, her eyes narrowing. The fact she hated talking about her impending shackle in holy matrimony was practically written in ten foot high letters, which Evie was doing her damnedest to avoid.

  "I don't know how I'd handle the idea of being forced into a marriage," LG whispered, her fingers worrying her hair over her eyes.

  Rosie shrugged, "Cailan seems perfectly content with the concept."

  "Because your brother expects about as much loyalty as he plans to give," Tess responded, nodding her head with Rosie.

  That caused Evie to pivot her head a bit, "If it were me in your lofted position, Rosamund, I'd do everything in my power to keep my husband from stepping out on me."

  Rosie sighed, the fan waving through Evie's blustering words, when it suddenly stopped. She closed it up and focused on the woman. "What do you mean?"

  "You'd be Queen, or about to be. Threaten to have his balls chopped off, or head stuck in a vice, or ship him off to war or something if you ever catch him cheating. Only way, right at the beginning. Trust is foolish in this game. Otherwise it's all dipping into the first whore one stumbles across in the back alley. I mean, look at your father."

  Myra grabbed onto the dirt below her, her nails gouging deep into the earth while she pictured them puncturing Evie's skin. Seeming to be as incensed, Rosie sat up higher and glared at Evie, "What about my father? Your king?"

  "A fine man, but still a man under it all. And they have all the loyalty of a dog that just smelled its next meal. How your poor mother puts up with such an atrocity is beyond me."

  "My mother is quite capable on her own," Rosie backed off and didn't hurl Evie out of the tent. No, instead she began to slide into her chair and opened the fan. "Believe me."