Flutiebear: Rambling My Way Through Thedas

Gwaelin knew she was staring, but she couldn’t look away. How beautiful he was to look upon, prettier than a painting, realer than a statue. Not because he was perfect, but because he was imperfect: the map of his scars a reminder of his failings, and his determination to go on despite them. Impossible Alef hadn’t started out impossible. He’d made mistakes. He’d been just a boy, once. He’d been an infant, just like her.

Their eyes met, and Alef’s slid away almost at once. Chin averted, he said nothing as he slipped into the waters before removing his towel, replacing the sopping cloth on the stones.

That’s when Gwaelin was hit with the folly of her plan: Now he was naked, too. Under the water, neither of them were wearing any clothes.

Meaning, somewhere down there he was just… bobbing about, like a fishing lure. All she’d have to do was look down, and there would be no secrets anymore; everything would be laid bare between them.

Don’t look down, she thought.

“When I was eight years old, I caught a pox and nearly died.” Gwaelin gasped, but whether she was horrified by what had happened to Alef or his nonchalant tone about it, she couldn’t say. He continued, “I lay abed for two months. Two long, long months. When finally I recovered and set foot outside my bed—well.” He nodded to her bare toes, stretched out before them. “Walking went about the same for me, too. But with more tears.”

Gwaelin found it difficult to think of the mountain next to her as anything but the peak of fitness. “But thou art so—so—”

His mouth quirked. “Heroic?”

“Muscular.”

Alef laughed. He had a lovely laugh, Gwaelin thought. She’d like to hear more of it. “Not back then, I was not. Back then, I was weak and tiny, made moreso after lying motionless for months. Hardly any time at all could I stand without pain. I had to teach my legs how to walk once more, and it was hard. Very hard. Many were the times I wished to give up.”

“Wherefore did you not?”

Alef smiled softly, recalling some distant memory. “My mother.”

“Did she encourage thee?”

“In her way.” His smile never faltered. “She reminded me, repeatedly, that the blood of the Erdrick runneth through my veins, and heroes did not give up.”

Alef’s tone was fond, but there was something about the anecdote that struck Gwaelin, something concerning that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It had to do with the idea of a young, afflicted son feeling compelled by his parents by an accident of birth, something he had no control over. As Erdrick’s heir, the pressure under which Alef had grown up must have been tremendous. She wondered if he’d ever felt he had any choices in his life at all.

Choice was not something that came readily to a princess, either. Oh, she had the choice of which dress to wear to a banquet, perhaps; or which foods to eat off each plate. But not the choice of which dignitaries to sit next to, or whom to take as dance partners, or whom to flirt with or ignore. All that had been decided by her father and the chancellor, in service of trade deals and alliances. By the fate of her birth alone, even her dinner conversations had been written for Gwaelin before she had learned to speak.

“Such a heavy burden birthrights can be sometimes,” she mused.

Alef smiled that soft, shy smile at her, like sunlight peeking through the clouds, and Gwaelin’s heart tugged again.

“Thou never hadst companions on thy quest? Not a one?”

The corner of Alef’s mouth quirked. “Most of thy subjects, Princess, loveth their lives enough not to throweth them away.”

“But not thee,” Gwaelin felt compelled to point out.

“Not me,” he said simply, as if it really was that simple. And maybe to him, it was.

“Yet thou hast traveled all over Alefgard.” His armor was Rimuldaran; his shield Garinham-make. Who even knew where he himself had come from—anywhere, nowhere. Impossible Alef, who sprang from the dirt full-formed and ready to save the world. “Thou must have friends all over the isles.”

He snorted. “Allies, mayhap. Opportunistic shopkeeps willing to sell me arms at extravagant prices.” A particularly wide puddle commanded his full attention for a moment, and as he hopped over it, Gwaelin had a momentary sense of weightlessness. “Yet not a soul with whom to converse.”

“Nor have I had anyone these many—” She swallowed, hard, “—months. So I understand thy loneliness well.” Something inside Gwaelin’s ribcage tugged, hard. But maybe it was just Alef’s foot finding solid earth once more.

Alef frowned at a rock on the ground. “I spake not of loneliness.”

“Thou didst not need to.”

Gwaelin’s pulse skipped. If she squinted, she thought she could still see the cave looming on the horizon behind them. “Should not we leave the swamp first?”

“A long way yet remains. ‘Tis slower to leave this swamp than to enter it. Besides,” he added without really looking at her. “Thou hadst an eventful day. Thou needest rest.”

Gwaelin was about to protest, when once again she noticed the sweat-streaked soot smudged on Alef’s cheeks, the deep circles under his eyes; and she realized that he might be speaking more to himself than to her. She exhaled through her teeth, then nodded. “All right.”

They’d come to a small copse of trees, less skeletal than the rest. A few shriveled leaves still clung to the branches—not green, not even particularly leaf-like, but which tenaciously held onto the memory of what a leaf ought to be. Besides her and Alef, it was the closest thing to life in the swamp that Gwaelin had seen thus far.

In the center of the trees was a small patch of earth that, while not dry precisely, was at least less acid-soaked than the rest of the swamp. Alef set her down upon a fallen log that was too stiff and scarred to rot.

“We might risk a fire, at least for a short time,” he said, rolling out his shoulders. “Thou art cold as ice.”

Blushing to think he’d noticed something as intimate as her body temperature, Gwaelin busied herself with scrounging around her log for the driest-looking sticks and twigs and assembling at the center of the clearing. “What if the Dragonlord’s minions should discover us? We are defenseless.”

“Aye, that is a risk.” Stretching, Alef bent over and grabbed his toes, a feat of remarkable flexibility in such thick plate. The act displayed his haunches to great advantage. “But thou art not defenseless. Thou hast me.”

Gwaelin’s pulse skipped. If she squinted, she thought she could still see the cave looming on the horizon behind them. “Should not we leave the swamp first?”

“A long way yet remains. ‘Tis slower to leave this swamp than to enter it. Besides,” he added without really looking at her. “Thou hadst an eventful day. Thou needest rest.”

Gwaelin was about to protest, when once again she noticed the sweat-streaked soot smudged on Alef’s cheeks, the deep circles under his eyes; and she realized that he might be speaking more to himself than to her. She exhaled through her teeth, then nodded. “All right.”

They’d come to a small copse of trees, less skeletal than the rest. A few shriveled leaves still clung to the branches—not green, not even particularly leaf-like, but which tenaciously held onto the memory of what a leaf ought to be. Besides her and Alef, it was the closest thing to life in the swamp that Gwaelin had seen thus far.

In the center of the trees was a small patch of earth that, while not dry precisely, was at least less acid-soaked than the rest of the swamp. Alef set her down upon a fallen log that was too stiff and scarred to rot.

“We might risk a fire, at least for a short time,” he said, rolling out his shoulders. “Thou art cold as ice.”

Blushing to think he’d noticed something as intimate as her body temperature, Gwaelin busied herself with scrounging around her log for the driest-looking sticks and twigs and assembling at the center of the clearing. “What if the Dragonlord’s minions should discover us? We are defenseless.”

“Aye, that is a risk.” Stretching, Alef bent over and grabbed his toes, a feat of remarkable flexibility in such thick plate. The act displayed his haunches to great advantage. “But thou art not defenseless. Thou hast me.”

Gwaelin hated caves.

Dank, nasty places they were; with slimy walls and stale air, and creatures possessing entirely too many legs to be polite. Some people apparently liked to explore caves for fun, but she couldn’t conceive of how; for what enjoyment could be had in squeezing through cramped, half-hewn rock, getting mud on your hem and spiders in your hair? The young princess couldn’t even bear to attend the yearly dedication ceremony at Erdrick’s Cavern a few leagues north of the palace; and that was a fairly well-groomed warren, with obvious paths clearly marked and free of monsters.

But it was also dark, and she’d had enough of darkness, thank thee very much. With all of Alefgard bathed in eternal gloom, Gwaelin had never felt compelled to go out seeking more of it.

Right now, though, she longed for the relative comforts of Erdrick’s Cavern. Anything would be better than this: holed up under the earth, Rubiss-knows-where, with only a ferocious dragon for company; left to await her nuptials to the King of All Monsters.

The Dragonlord.

Apparently he fancied making his dominion over Alefgard politically binding by marrying its future queen—a proposition so ludicrous that Gwaelin should have found it funny, if only she weren’t the punchline to the joke.

She’d had been here for weeks—months, maybe? Time had lost all meaning in the dark. She’d tried to keep track of her sleeps on the wall using the heel of her shoe; but either the rock had proved too strong or the shoe too feeble, and the point had snapped like a desiccated twig. Walking was now quite impossible. Not that she was going anywhere any time soon.