My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  His eyes drifted over to Myra's, her pillows sitting in place, and he groaned deep in his stomach. "How have you been, Mom?" Gavin said, looking for anything to provide a distraction.

  "Well enough," Reiss tried to play along. "Work's been slowing."

  "That's too bad."

  "Given my line, I'd say it's a good thing for Denerim."

  He winced at her logic, "Right, right. And you, Duncan? Have you been a good boy with your grandma?"

  "Yes," he spat out, his head bobbing, but he refused to turn from his drawing. It was very important to him.

  Fully out of small talk, the man who limped back to his home sunk deeper into the chair. His head burrowed into the back as if he wished it to consume him whole. Reiss felt the stirrings of pity in her soul for his state. In general, he and Myra worked and their love was obvious to all who saw it, but they had this one sticking point that was getting larger and larger with every passing year.

  "Daddy!" Duncan shouted, the quill falling from his fingers as he slid out of his chair. He picked the parchment up and dashed over to his father to show it off. "See, Daddy!"

  "It's lovely," Gavin shifted a bit higher to peer down while Reiss followed suit. Like the mighty adventurer that ran in his blood, Duncan held the drawing flat as if it was the map to a great treasure. "What's that?" the father asked, pointing to a stick with a big circle on the top.

  "Me!" Duncan shouted, so proud of his accomplishment.

  "Ah, yes, I can see the resemblance. Love the addition of fingers." He pointed to the end of the arms where another five massive sticks erupted out. This version of Duncan seriously needed to clip his nails.

  "And that's Mummy," he pointed to a slightly taller version of his stick figures which he added a great big circle in the middle of, "and that's you!" The other was the tallest on the drawing, with arms that hung down to the ground and feet with great big boots circling the outside edge.

  "Who's that?" Gavin asked, pointing behind the image of Myra.

  "Gammy! See the hat," Duncan explained as if he was going into excruciating detail on his masterpiece. Sure enough, the line doodling of Reiss had a triangle perched upon the top of her circle head.

  "It's lovely, son," Gavin whispered while placing a kiss to the boy's forehead. "You captured her perfectly."

  Duncan's lips parted wide to reveal a massive smile. Turning back, he waved the drawing at Reiss. "See Gammy!"

  "I do," she smiled at his enthusiasm, when her eyes drifted towards the corner edge. Smaller than the rest of the standing people, one of the stick figures was laying horizontally, though both arms were still positioned up and down. Perspective was difficult regardless of age.

  "Duncan, who's that you have lying down?"

  "Hm?" he looked down at his drawing as if he'd never seen it before, "Oh, that's Gampy. He's sweeping. We can't wake him."

  Reiss gasped a moment, her hand slapping to her mouth to keep the sob in place. Tears burned in her eyes, but she swallowed them back. Her grandson was beaming at her in pride; if she broke down it'd crush him. Chewing on the grief, Reiss nodded, "He'd love it."

  Tipping his head back, Duncan stared the same question at his father. Gavin wrapped a hand around his son and backed Reiss up, "He'd adore it. It's beautiful. Come here," Gavin shifted his legs to make a lap for Duncan to scurry into. With a grunt of exhaustion, Gavin gritted his teeth while his son shifted into place -- the boy's green eyes inspecting the drawing for any defects.

  After kissing the back of Duncan's head, Gavin glanced to Reiss who was staring out at nothing. Every foolish little thing reminded her of him. Sometimes just watching Duncan sleep curled up in his bed, he'd be the spitting image of Alistair when he was far away from the stress of being King. Well, he's free of it now.

  "Where's your mummy?" Duncan asked suddenly, causing Gavin to whip his head down in confusion. "Gammy is mummy's mummy," the boy explained slowly as if afraid his father wouldn't understand. "Do you have a mummy?"

  "I..." the father's breath caught and he smoothed down his son's runaway curls. "I did."

  "Where is she?" They'd only recently started explaining genealogy to the boy, causing him to often ask people about their parentage. It was a bit fun to watch stuffy Banns give their entire family history to a three year old whose greatest concern was that everyone have a Mom. If he didn't become a great hero, perhaps running an orphanage would be in Duncan's future.

  "She's with my father," Gavin walled off, his lips flattening in thought, "at the Maker's side."

  "Oh," Duncan looked down at his drawing as if he forgot something important. Craning his head back, Duncan stared at his father. "Do they have custard?"

  Gavin chuckled a moment at the serious question, "Probably the best custard in thedas."

  "I want to go," Duncan insisted and his father crumbled in an instant.

  Reaching the good arm far around, he tugged his boy tighter into his chest for a deep embrace. "Not for a very very long time, you hear me."

  "Kay," Duncan sighed, his heart clearly set on this magical custard. The boy twisted around a bit, but his father was in no mood to let him go. They hadn't been apart too long, it was true. And he wasn't fighting off in some battle or taking on brigands. He was assisting with a storm that rolled off the sea and flattened and flooded a lot of the land. Admirable, as if that wasn't etched into every inch of Gavin's skin. But it could have cost him so much more than a broken bone.

  And that would surely kill her daughter.

  "Are you at all concerned about Myra?" Reiss asked, tugging the father away from his son.

  Gavin gulped a moment, then nodded, "Often. Constantly. Whenever I close my eyes." Each admittance of the truth seemed to draw the steely resolve from him.

  "What about her concerns?"

  "She's..." he sighed, shifting back and forth in his chair, "she's moody right now. I understand, filling with a baby will do that, but...given time, I'm certain she'll calm down."

  'She always does' remained unsaid. Reiss hadn't been privy to this fight before, but she knew it existed. Her daughter made a few mentions, at first as something to complain about, then her roundabout way of asking for advice. For Myra to come to anyone for advice with nary a joke on her lips meant it was deathly serious to her.

  "When Alistair and I first came together, he was always worrying himself grey over me. You work with criminals. You work in the alienage. You only have Lunet as backup. No offense, Lunet. It was infuriating at times because I knew myself. I knew I could handle it."

  "Yes, precisely," Gavin said, his head lifting higher to have someone on his side.

  "For thirty years, I shook off his rebukes and his concerns because I knew what I was doing," Reiss continued, her hand caressing the scrap of flesh where her ear should be. "So know when I say that you are being a righteous ass and should listen to your wife I have a lot of experience in that department."

  "I'm not..." he began but Reiss wouldn't hear it. Shit, she had trouble hearing it. The man was so soft spoken she had to position herself directly across and try to read his lips most times. At least Myra could bellow with the best of them.

  "I am well aware that I am stubborn beyond belief. Myra would snort in agreement if she were here, and Maker knows she got her fair share of it from me."

  Lifting up the coin with her dearest love's profile stamped onto the top, Reiss let her thumb travel over it. How many times did she dig her heels in? How many times did he nearly tug his hair out in frustration? How could she have made it easier on him before the end?

  "You're getting old," Reiss said to the coin, "you're growing more sloppy. It happens to everyone. But more sloppy, more tired, more distracted means more mistakes. And in this world you chose, more mistakes equals death." Her eyes darted right to Gavin's, the man staring around the room at everywhere but her. He looked as if he wanted to tell her off, but he was raised to respect his elders even if it bit him in the ass.

  "I can't just..." he sighed,
"If I don't do it, then someone else less qualified, less capable, less seasoned might attempt it and not pull it off. They could die. The people they're trying to help could die. And that blood would be on my hands."

  She closed her eyes, hearing the same words repeated in her voice to a shirtless man who left his crown at home. "Alistair, it has to be me. I'm the only one they'll listen to!"

  "And what if you die?!"

  She didn't. She pulled off the miracle and kept on keeping on. Even when things grew dark, darker than... Reiss did her best to not think about her kidnapping, to not feel hot breath down her neck, to not remember the rush of blood gushing off the side of her head. But it was in there. And it didn't have to be. If she'd just listened.

  "Your wife needs you, your children will need you. There comes a time when one has to step aside and let others pick up the mantle. When you choose your life instead of nothing but the drudgery before death."

  Gavin didn't shout at her, not that she expected him too. Nor did he calmly attempt to pick apart her arguments, or even easily rebuke them. Maker knew it was full of hypocrisy coming from her. If it was all so easy to turn your back on your life's ambition, why didn't she?

  Hindsight. It was why they kept the elderly around after all.

  Instead, the boy pressed his lips to his son and tried to crush him in a hug. When the door above them cracked open, all three heads craned up. Myra was quiet walking down the stairs, her bare feet barely making a sound while trudging to the living room.

  "I'm not apologizing," was the first thing she said, aimed fully at her husband who remained quiet. "But...there's stuff you should know about. Mom too, I forgot, um..."

  Pausing by the firelight, her blonde hair took on an otherworldly glow as if she was lit from inside. Duncan wiggled out of his dad's arms and rushed over to wrap around his mother. "Ugh," Myra groaned, the boy's face dipping into her rotund stomach before she got a better grip and hugged him back.

  "Mummy, see!" he hefted up his portrait of their family, Duncan's only concern in the world right now. Myra's gritted jaw and haunted eyes softened like butter left by the hearth.

  "It's beautiful," she smiled to her boy. "Is that Mom's hat?" she asked, jabbing at the triangle that looked almost nothing like the one Reiss really wore. Duncan whipped his head up and down fast causing Myra to chuckle, "You're getting really good at this. Maybe Rosie can use you as official portrait drawer for the crown."

  "You had something to tell me?" Reiss began, her eyes darting over to the man who remained silent.

  Duncan pulled away from his mother in order to lay his drawing flat on the table. Scurrying up into the chair beside Reiss, he snatched up the quill and dipped it deep enough to coat half the feather in ink. Most would have chastised him, but they were all too distracted with adult pain. Happy to be lost in his throes of simple childhood, Duncan smeared a few ink stained fingerprints over his masterpiece before he started to doodle more.

  "It's something Rosie told me about," Myra began, her fingers tugging on her hair, "She's, uh, she's hosting a little get together for all the kids and grandkids on Dad's birthday. The real one, not that fake one we all pretend is the real one."

  Reiss nodded her head, one eye casting over to her grandson. "That sounds lovely," she said. "And like something your father would have adored."

  "Yeah," Myra coughed, "and she, um, she said you should come. Could come, I mean. Not an official order or anything."

  Flinching, Reiss turned to her daughter, "I don't know if that's such a wise..."

  "Mom, I get that you think the palace isn't your place anymore. Not without dad around, but..." Myra hefted up and down on her toes, "she's my sister, he's my brother, there's a good dozen nieces and nephews running around now. They're all family and you are too. Plus," she shrugged her shoulder, tears dancing in her eyes, "Dad would want you there. I...I want you there."

  She hadn't been back since the funeral, that elven detective having no reason to set foot back in the human spheres of politics. Myra went on occasion, usually at the Queen's urging or for her husband. But Reiss couldn't do it. Even if she had a reason, the thought of wandering those halls where she first met him knowing that even if she opened every one of the multitude of doors he wouldn't be behind a single one... No. It, it was too hard to contemplate.

  "Gammy," Duncan draped his head against her arm, his eyes rolling up to hers. He didn't seem to want anything, just to remind himself that she was there. It started after they lost Alistair and Reiss doubted it'd vanish anytime soon.

  "Okay," she nodded her head, her hand sliding around to grip to the back of Duncan's chair and keep him safe. "I'll go to this party."

  Myra smiled bittersweetly, "Good, I can tell Rosie to expect you. She was gonna bring out cucumber sandwiches, which is a perfectly good waste of both bread and cucumbers if you ask me. So," her weary eyes drifted over to her husband, "that was it." Turning on her heel, Myra moved to march back to her room.

  "Wait," Gavin called, the man turning quick to try and catch her fingers. She glanced down where he touched her and didn't shake him off, but she sighed deeply.

  "I'm not in the mood to fight right now."

  "Myra," he guided her closer to him, Myra's head thrown back in exhaustion until he got her body right in front of his chair. Rather than stand, Gavin pulled on her until Myra collapsed onto his lap -- massive stomach and all.

  "What are you doing?" she asked. It wasn't a flirtatious giggle, nor was she frothing mad. She seemed fully confused by the move.

  Burying his face into her shoulder, Gavin wrapped his good arm around his wife and snuggled her tighter. It took a moment before Myra turned and hugged him back. Even pissed as hell, she clearly missed him. In shifting, she must have glanced across his broken bone as Gavin once again hissed in pain.

  "Sorry," Myra apologized before frowning as she must have remembered that's what started their whole fight. "I can get some salves to try and heal that up. There are a few in back from..."

  "Wait," he repeated, apparently the only word he had left in his arsenal after the browbeating he received. He drew his cheek against hers and sighed. "I missed you beyond counting, Myra. You and Duncan. Every night, every day, every breath."

  "We missed you too," she said, frowning.

  His amber eyes burned right into Myra's as he swore, "And I never ever want to lose you."

  "Gavin, it was just a fight. They happen..."

  "Not..." he chuckled a moment, "no, I understand now. You're right."

  "Come again?" Myra blinked in surprise.

  "You are right. It is time, beyond time that I stepped back from my full duties."

  Her jaw dropped open while Reiss turned back a moment to hide her grin. "You'll, you'll get off the front line? Ask Rosie to-to make you a general or however it all works? I mean, you should have been promoted ages ago but everyone's all worried about nepotism, as if stopping a war shouldn't count for a big medal or..."

  Gavin skirted a hand higher up his wife and sighed, trying to stymie off her babble. "More than that," he said cryptically before fully shifting gears. "Myra, we can barely fit in this house. Between your runes and my mess of weaponry that should be locked up better we're already full to bursting. And there's another baby on the way."

  His hand scooped over her stomach, tenderly rubbing it as if he was making a wish. Maybe he was. Myra watched a moment, her eyes set to mist before she shook hard and honed on him, "What are you getting at?"

  "I think it's time we moved out to the estate I was given."

  "But...but that place is, it's...huge. Like way too big and fancy. I thought you hated it."

  Gavin shrugged, "My duty as a knight is to tend the land, to keep watch over it, and while I have let it fall to the groundskeeper for the past few years, it is not right of me to put so much on him."

  "What about my shop?"

  He snickered a moment, "You are the only enchanter who found a way to work two enchantments onto one
rune. People will travel from miles, across countries, to buy off you. Plus, I think we could find an entire tower for you to work in without having to worry about strange fumes or smoke pouring into the eating area."

  At that Myra smiled, "An entire tower would be a good start. I mean, if I'm really going to get that lightning and ice one to work I'd probably need a wing..." When Gavin frowned deeply, she chuckled. "Move? Leave Denerim for a fancy palace in the forest? Are you serious? You can't be, I mean this is..."

  "It's a house, Denerim is a city. My home is you, and my son, my family. I can keep my vows, offer up my services to the crown as I swore, and still come home to you every night."

  Reiss could see tears rising in her daughter's eyes at the prospect. All Myra wanted was for her husband to not risk his neck so damn much, but the idea of him being with her always was almost too much for her to bear. Diving forward, she plucked a tender kiss to his slack lips and the elderly grandma turned away. The fruit of one of their unions was happily sketching away on his parchment, unaware of the new plans for his future.

  Smiling, Myra turned her head towards Reiss, no doubt about to tell the woman what this estate boasted. They'd gone once to visit it, but that was all that Reiss knew. "What...?" Myra whipped back to the man she sat on, "what about Mom?"

  "My..." Reiss began, knowing that this was the best possibility for them all. "Don't worry about me."

  "By the void, why not? We can't just, I mean she'd be here, but with Dad gone and..."

  "Why not come with?" Gavin shrugged as if it was so simple. "Duncan will adore having you around, and with another on the way," he waved to Myra's stomach again, "we'll need all the help we can get."

  "You don't want me there getting in the way," Reiss began, lifting up her hand.

  "Believe me Mom, this place is huge. We may not see you for a week. And there are a few elves working there," Myra's voice lifted up to a singsong, "cute ones."