Private Tales What Remains

[Faelynwë]

The news snapped her violet eyes upwards from the bundle to his face. She seemed to search for something there - perhaps a sign that he was lying, or exaggerating, or maybe even some kind of amusement. Anything that she might be able to latch onto and use to pull herself out of the opening well of guilt threatening to swallow her whole. The pity she saw only made things worse.

Fae's face crumpled and she turned away before he could see just how badly the rumour broke her.

"More people hate us than you," she agreed and pulled the cloak tight around her as she walked back to the streams edge. If news had broken out that the Prince had escaped and bested all those men on his own he would have been a martyr. Fae slumped heavily on to one of the rocks and put her feet back into the cold water, hoping it would shock her into staying present and not drifting... drifting into those memories.

"Can I have the Root now? Please?" the last word was a hoarse croak.

 

[Avros]

Pain and guilt lanced through Avros' heart.

A turmoil roiling within his stomach that nearly made him want to vomit.

"More people hate us than you."​

The words, he knew, were now true. He had seen the anger in that man's eyes, heard the venom within his voice. There had been pain there, but it was vile. It made him wonder about his people. how they had changed as the Usurper took hold of this land.

For a moment the Prince did not answer, standing behind Fae as he thrust her feet into the icy water. He lingered for only a moment, stepping forward as he sat himself down besides the Elf. The bundle still in his hands. "It wasn't always that way."

Avros said softly, placing the rolled leather between the two of them.

"It hurts to see it is now." The Prince admitted, shame flickering through his voice.

 

[Faelynwë]

Faelynwë all but snatched the leather roll before it has even hit the ground. Her hands shook as she unrolled it, her emotions rolling into her withdrawal making her unsteady. Even her eyes felt unfocused, though she figured that was more owing to the tears she was blinking back.

Smoking would make it better. Dull the edges. Help her think.

She repeated it in her head like a mantra. It had long stopped being one to convince her to smoke and had instead become one that helped her deal with the emotions until she could get her next hit.

"Everyone needs an enemy to hate," she parroted her fathers wise words as she hurriedly gathered some of the precious drug and stuffed it into the thin brown paper. "It's a way to feel better about your own position. Blame it on someone else." Finally she had it rolled and hurriedly she lit it. The memories of her father were growing stronger and if that dam broke...

She took a deep, shaky inhale and felt her shoulders sag in relief.

 

[Avros]

Avros didn't comment, didn't look, didn't do anything as Fae snatched up her vice. There was nothing he could do, he knew, no argument he could make within the moment. Perhaps had they been at a different place, with a different journey ahead...but now was not the time.

If he tried, she would kick, she would scream, and she would almost certainly get them killed

Going through root withdrawals on the road only meant she would be worse for ware. Two days had been enough, but after three Avros knew that it got even worse. Nightmares turned to hallucinations, heavy sweats turned to proper fevers. The body would fight itself in desperate need.

As much as he despised it, there was no other way.

That fact struck him to his core. Stretched that feeling of guilt and made the anger in his chest twist into a knot. He did not want this. He had not wanted any of this, and now he was once again walking the same path.

Seeing those around him fall, because he was not strong enough...hadn't been strong enough. "There was an Aveli saying once."

He said quietly.

"I don't know if he'd have wiped it out." As he had so much else. "Hatred is the only poison which hurts you as much as them."

Avros quoted, though in the old tongue of their people. "It never sounded all that right to me."

 

[Faelynwë]

"I don't really feel like a lecture right now," Fae said flatly, casting him a stony look. There was less ire and heat to it than there had been in the past few days. Already she could feel her stomach cramping less, the headache receding, and that pleasant feeling of indifference settling over her mind. That shimmering connection she had begun to worry about that had helped her pull a sword from a book, dulled.

The elf took another drag, and when she released the smoke it felt like a shuddering sigh of homecoming.

"Maybe I should just cut my ears off, that might help," she didn't sound at all like she was joking, more musing on the idea. "Others did - to blend in," but the eyes... it was always the eyes. Even when they had attempted to wear cosmetics to disguise it the magic in their blood had burnt it away.

"They'll be hunting for you too, soon. They might not tell the ordinary folk but I'm sure the Guards and Watchmen will know. It'll get harder from here to go into towns."

 

[Avros]

Avros did his level best to keep staring ahead. Settling his eyes on the opposite riverbank and watching the gentle sway of the trees. It kept him from glancing at the Elf at his side, kept him from looking at her with disapproval. He didn't want the argument, and truth was, he didn't want to be alone.

She was, as far as he could tell, one of the last of her kind. He doubted there were more than a dozen of Fae's people left alive in Avelin, and if there were more they were likely hiding in the depths of the nations gutters. Goosebumps rolled over his flesh as she spoke of cutting her ears, a picture of horrific marring flashing through his mind. He'd seen it done more than once, before his capture, it had sickened him then too. "Maybe we start with a hat."

The prince said, the words clearly not meant to be a joke.

Avros had little doubt about the small amount of good it would do them, but they would need something before long. Moving north would be perilous, they wouldn't be able to avoid every town, even if they tried. Disguising Fae would be more difficult than doing the same for himself, but it was also their only option if they were to make it.

"I know." He said in soft answer to her 'warning'. "We need to get my sword."

The prince reiterated. "And maybe find an old friend or two."

If any of them were still even left alive. He had no doubt that the Usurper had been thorough, but Avros had never broken, never given up a single name. He had to believe that some of those who had supported him still lived. Would still help him if he found them.

He had to believe. Had to.

 

[Faelynwë]

"And then what? Launch another rebellion?" Faelynwë laughed. It might have been cruel if it did not sound so melancholy. It broke off abruptly when it sounded as though a sob caught in her throat and she turned her face even further from him, drawing deeply on the Root.

She had dreamed, once, that such a rebellion might happen. Back then she had been young and still clinging to the hope that she would one day see her home again, hear the Seven Bells ring once more. There had been efforts over the years but as each one had failed, another piece of her had broken. In the end when she had heard words of another rebellion or some underground movement she had made a point to walk away and not linger to hear and give her heart one last flare of home. The Usurper had his claws dug deep into this land and they were all now his puppets to play with as he wished. Fae could only wish for a quiet life and now she had ruined even that small chance.

"The water is quite pleasant, if you wish to bathe before we leave."

 

[Avros]

Avros said nothing. Biting back the anger that roiled within his chest at the dismissive, but melancholic laugh that echoed from her throat.

He knew the failure of those who fought against the Usurper.

Knew it better than most.

His life had been bespoke from the moment the Tyrant had come forward, his fate set in stone the second his parents had fallen to his blades. When the blood of his family had been spilled, the Prince had known he would never do anything but fight.

Yet in that fight he had sent hundreds, no, thousands to their deaths.

For a time they had been successful, for a time they had managed to gain ground and even take the cities of Trier and Nuel from the hands of the Tyrant, but no legends were told of that. No stories remained of what had happened there. How he'd been taken.

There was no song to sing.

No gleemen who knew the tale.

He had killed them all.

Without saying a word Avros slowly began to strip off the meager rags he called clothes. Not bothering to move away from Fae as he went down to his smallclothes. Gently placing the stolen sword atop his boots as he silently waded into the water away from her. The bitterness still quieting his tongue.

 

[Faelynwë]

Content to not speak further, Faelynwë picked up her lute once more.

This time she didn't raise her voice to join in with the strings, as the Root still hung between her lips. Now and then she would she let the smoke out through her nostrils or the corner of her mouth. But, as it turned out, her voice was not needed. The music her fingers conjured was beautiful enough and filled the small glade with a story that didn't need the tale said out loud. The rises and falls told when action was occurring, and tender chords made it clear when lovers were sharing a moment. The tune was a familiar one, The Nightingale and The Wolf, that most children learnt when they were still sitting on their mothers knee.

By the end of it - and the Root - she seemed calmer than she had since they had first found themselves thrust together. She sat upon the rock for a while in silence and then spoke;

"I am sorry, that was cruel. What I said - about the rebellion. It is not that I don't wish it more that... my heart cannot take any more hope."

 

[Avros]

Avros waded into the cool waters without a word, stewing in his own rage as he moved to clean himself of the muck he'd been carrying for days.

It should have been soothing, even calming, but all he could think about were the thousands he'd lead to their graves. The sacrifices they had made. The lives that he had tossed away for a dream that seemed closer to dying than it ever had been before.

As he stared out across the river and into the forest beyond, the once Prince couldn't help but ask himself if any of it had been worth it. Any of it at all.

Even when Fae offered her apology, Avros said nothing. Instead he lowered himself into the stream fully. Closing his eyes for a moment and letting the calm current of the water flow over him. Feet digging through the soft silt as he pushed himself up above the surface once more. Hands raking through his hair to push it back out of his eyes.

"He took everything from us." He said softly, finally.

"Our parents. Our families. Our people." Avros stared out into the forest again, his gaze dropping as he slowly let his hands float to the surface of the water. Staring at the scars decorating his arms and hands. "He wiped yours, and twisted mine in his own image."

The Prince swallowed hard. "I never fought because I had hope."

"I fought because it was the only thing I could do." Avros admitted. "Because it's the only thing I can do."

The only thing that might ever make it right.

 

[Faelynwë]

Silence spread between them, punctured only by the soft chorus of the birds above or the gentle murmur of the stream.

Fae had no such claim. She had not tried to fight, she had hidden beneath the bones of her city and listened alone as it had burned. Had sat in the cold dark as blood soaked into the earth. How many nights did she wish she had died along with them so then she wouldn't have to feel this weight of being useless? A weight which was even worse now she had committed their most grievous of crimes: she had taken another life.

"I'll go start dinner," she said abruptly lest she disappear down the rabbit hole and not return. She didn't want to lose the soft fuzziness of the Root so soon. Standing, she tugged the cloak tight around her and wandered over to the supplies she had spotted he had returned with. Taking the sack she then set about creating a fire and setting up a measly stew.

 

[Avros]

For a long while, Avros only stood there. Staring out into the depths of the forest. One almost could have believed that he were searching for something, that among the trees and in the depths there lay that speckle of hope he could have been looking for.

But the empty look in his eyes betrayed the truth.

He was, in his very soul, as lost as the Elf behind him.

The Prince had no idea what he was to do, no idea what he needed to do. There would be a fight, another rebellion. He would gather those who would come, and then he would pit them once more against the Usurper and his soldiers.

It was almost assured that they would lose once more, that this would be the final death knell of the rebellion that he had so long pushed.

Avros knew that, and yet he would do it still.

He would do it because there was no other choice. Because it was the only thing that he could do. There was no running, not from his home.

As Fae set the flames of their cookfire, Avros finally began to move. Bathing himself as he broke from the forlorn thoughts storming within his mind. Pulling himself back onto the shore and drying off as best he could before pulling on his clothes. His face almost expressionless as he sat himself down besides the flames.

 

[Faelynwë]

Faelynwë was not used to soending so much time with a person. Though her job saw her sweep through crowded inns and packed taverns, the life of a Gleemaiden was incredibly lonely. It was of course her own doing. Other performers found empty seats at tables with ease and in the early days, Fae had been offered the same. But she had shunned them. Shunned the people who had done nothing when her world had been burnt to the ground.

That was all to say, she was out of practise at making small talk. Whilst they were on the road they could make the excuse they were too busy walking, but now in the quiet lull of an evening meal there was no such excuse. She opened her mouth several times to say something but the words turned to ash on her tongue. Nothing seemed appropriate. So she hunched over the stew until there was no more she could do to it the ladeled out two bowls and a chunk of the bread he had brought.

 

[Avros]

It was Avros who broke the silence. A quiet; ”Thank you”, echoing from his lips as he took the small bowl Fae offered him.

His gaze dropping down into the stew as he clutched the wooden utensil a bit too tightly. The bread in his off hand crumpling ever so slightly as he took in a deep breath and tried to push down the shame that still lingered in his chest. Those truths he has spoken stinging him more than he could have ever known. A part of him wondering if he even deserved the title of Prince.

If it wouldn't have been better worn by someone else.

The breath in his lungs flowed free, and his eyes closed for a moment as he did his best to push away those doubts. As he told himself that his choice was the same now as it had been then.

Told himself a lie that perhaps this time it would be different.

Eyes flickering open, the Prince slowly forced himself to eat. Dipping his bread and taking a soft bite, the flavour of the stew sending a small spark of joy over his taste buds. The meager meal a delight compared to the gruel and maggots he had been subjected to while the Usurper kept him imprisoned. The taste enough to send goosebumps down his spine.

”This is delicious.” The Prince complemented, ignoring the awkward tension that still lingered in the air. Forgetting, for just a second, what he he'd said before.

 

[Faelynwë]

Fae let the slightly water stew slowly drain from her spoon back into the bowl and then gave him a look that said I know you're full of shit. They had little to no herbs and their coin had a long way to go so Avros had not brought any of the best vegetables or cuts of meat. It was a passable meal in that it warmed her and filled her up, which was all one needed food to be. But she didn't cut him down. There was something in his tone that held her tongue, something that made her think that for him it was good. So she took another spoonful and quietly ate the rest of her meal.

"There's more - if you want it," she said. There was enough for a second bowlful for one of them but she wasn't sure she could stomach anymore. After a few moments of watching him eat, the way he relished every bite like he might never eat again, she bit the inside of her cheek then asked. "When did you... escape? I hadn't heard anything about a jail break," and news as big as that would have definitely travelled.

 

[Avros]

Avros glanced at the cookpot for a moment, frowning as he considered her and then the food. "I do."

The Prince said ultimately, deciding that a moment of selfishness would not undo every step he had had yet to take. In truth, he knew he was still rebuilding his strength. Ater nearly a decade under the Usurpers care, his body was not what it had once been. It would be weeks yet before he felt like himself, and perhaps longer before he was the way he'd been before.

As he took the last bowl of their food, Avros frowned slightly, hesitating. "I don't think anyone will have heard. If anyone even remembers me."

He said quietly.

"Two weeks ago now, I think." Slowly he brought the bowl back into his lap. Frowning as he tried to remember. "The first few nights were a blur."

The Prince admitted, his hands shaking ever so slightly. "I think he'd prefer people to think I'm already dead."

Avros, in truth, had not asked much about himself since his escape. He thought the questions were too dangerous. Random stranger asking about the long-gone Prince would send up signal flags to any Guards passing through.

He had absolutely no idea what people thought of their Prince, where they thought he was, or what had happened at all.

 

[Faelynwë]

Faelynwë thought back to the rumours she had heard of the Prince over the past year and realised there had been depressingly little. She scratched at the scabbing cut on her throat where the guards blade had bitten into her flesh.

"Even if the people had forgotten, I am surprised the guards tongues were not wagging in their mugs," though she supposed there was no reason for the guards beyond the Capital to have known of his escape. That was, of course, until the small towns garrison had apparently been sent a raven to warn of a stranger that might be lurking in their midst.

"He must be afraid that if your name was brought up again the people would stir. The Old King is still spoken of fondly," she said with a gentleness she had been lacking until now. It was not very often the King was spoken of or indeed anything about the time before the Usurper. Informants had been rife when he had first taken the throne which had turned neighbours against neighbours, sons against fathers, brothers against brothers. She winced as her nail bit a bit too deeply into her flesh causing the wound to reopen.

 

[Avros]

"Towards the end of my...stay, most of my Guards didn't even know who I was." Avros admitted. It had taken him a while to notice that fact, but once the pattern emerged he'd followed it easily enough. Most of those on duty had simply known him as a mystery, or another one of the faceless political prisoners kept by the Usurper.

He doubted that most of those searching for him now knew his true identity. The Tyrant likely thought it better that he was erased all together. The vestiges of those who dared resist him wiped away before they could ever take a foothold again.

A small smile pulled at his lips as she mentioned her father. "That nice to hear."

Avros said, no hint of sarcasm in his tone.

"I doubt it happens often." The Prince had seen enough of this 'new' world to guess that all on his own. Still, it was nice to know that at least a few fond words were spoken of his father. Hopefully his mother too. "Guess ill find out soon enough if anyone remembers me."

He grumbled quietly. "Hopefully at least one person does."

Otherwise they'd never find his sword.

 

[Faelynwë]

"I don't think anyone remembers me."

The words were out before Faelynwë had really registered their meaning and she stiffened hearing them out loud. Clearly she had not smoked or drunk enough to be having these types of conversation where she could let other peoples words roll off her without them dredging up dangerous words and even more dangerous thoughts. She slammed the door shut on the vault inside her mind them abruptly stood up, tugging the cloak tight about her.

"Goodnight," she could not so much as look in his direction in case she saw sympathy there. It would hurt her worse than a blade, so Fae did what she did best and fled before she could deal with it.

 

[Avros]

For a moment Avros stayed quiet.

His tongue stilling as she swept away, declared her intention and then began to move as far away as she could. The Prince paused, caught in a moment of self doubt, sorrow, and in simple truth; pettiness. A few seconds passing before the better side of him won over. "I remember you."

The Prince said finally, softly, but loud enough for her to hear.

"Meeting you." Avros said softly. "Playing with you in the garden."

A long breath flowed into his lungs. "I remember."

He'd had a lot of time to remember.

 

[Faelynwë]

Once upon a time there was a Princess, and she met a Prince...

Faelynwë froze mid step.

They played at being Bandits in the gardens.

"You must be mistaken," she said stiffly.

He scaled a tree to pluck an apple for her. She gave him one of her favourite books.

"We've never met."

The Prince went back to his home lands.

"I'm a nobody."

And that night, the Princesses family was murdered.

 

[Avros]

For a long moment, a minute, maybe two, it was hard to tell just how much time passed within the quiet of that forest.

There were no clocks. No song birds to mark the time. The only sound they heard was the thundering of their own hearts. "The Eagles Last Memory."

He said the words as though they were some sort of secret code, and in a way it was. The first time he had read them they had not been in the common tongue, but instead; elvish. He had seen them scrawled atop the leather binding of a book she had given him upon their parting.

"The book you gave." Avros said softly. "I buried it."

Slowly the Prince looked away from her, a small smile drawing on his lips. "Nyella was trying to get me out, saying I couldn't take a book. Just clothes, my sword..."

The Prince shook his head, knowing his nursemaids exact words did not matter. "I buried it in the garden. Put it in a little box just like the one the memory was found in."

Avros wondered if it was still there, or if the Usurper had found it during his renovations.

 

[Faelynwë]

Faelynwë merely stared at him. Her breathing had become erratic, see-sawing in and out of her in an increasing tempo, and the blood had seemingly drained entirely from her face. If someone remembered her then someone was able to bear witness to her failings. All of them. The addition to root, the state she had allowed herself to fall into, the blood on her hands...

"You buried--" she choked on the words. Somehow that detail was even more horrifying than the thought someone knew she existed. Fae spun away from him, her hands running through her still wet hair to stop them shaking. Then she began to mutter to herself as she strode off.

"Just a story. He just knows a story. None of it is real."

 

[Avros]

"Fae?" Avros beckoned, taking a step forward as his brows pressed together in consternation.

Her words made absolutely no sense, speaking as though he were not there at all.

Had she forgotten? Or did she simply...want to. The Prince stopped, not taking another step as he slowly lowered his hand. A frown now fully pulling at his lips. He took a slow breath and did not go after Faelynwë as she strode away.

Avros stood bewildered.

He had absolutely no idea what to think.

At first he had thought that she had been hiding. That her place in the little tavern and as a gleemaid as a cover so that she could flicker through the country. Her story was not a dangerous one, and it was an easy cover.

Now, Avros wondered if the life she had made for herself was not just a story she told others; but a story she told herself. For a moment more the Prince lingered there, his chest rising as he made a decision. A choice not to be a coward.

Quickly, he went after. Not concealing his steps as he traced hers. "Fae?"

He asked, echoing his earlier words.

 

[Faelynwë]

"It's all a story, just a story, story, story," the elf continued to mutter to herself as she crashed through the undergrowth. The doors she was never allowed to touch in her mind were splintering and she had to reinforce them.

"A story that you heard from another Gleeman. A story that happened to a Princess from far away," Fae chanted it like a mantra. She hadn't headed for the riverbank where she had left her things but rather deeper into the forest. Blindly following her feet and her need to run run run.

"There once was a Princess of the Elves of Silver Bells. She lived in a palace made of glass and had a mother and a father who loved her very much. One day a Prince came with a kindly King and Queen..." she continued on, repeating her own history back to herself as a twisted story. Each word seemed to soothe her, convince her of the lie.