Fic: Sweet Home, 1/8 (Aveyond)
This is the first of eight ficlets, about the various main characters and What Home Means To Them.
First up is Rhen.
Home was once a cradle of hills and meadows, perched atop the world. She raced within its boundaries, then, never thinking herself bound; learned to be a great hero and a good queen (she would say, years later, when her back had long since bent under the weight of a kingdom, that she never did figure out which was the more important) only by way of learning to be a good person, a good wife, and a good friend; and once, drunk on sunlight and the scent of marionbells, kissed the baker’s son under the blossoming arms of an apple tree while the world hummed all around them.
Years passed, and a slaver came to town and called her Priestess. Catching her by the hand where the true priestess’s ring glittered, he flung her out of her home; flung her across the sea to a fetid swamp where she was owned and shackled. And home became four bare walls, hemmed in by the commands of a shrill, grasping woman and her small-minded, mean-hearted son. She shouldered with ill grace every burden they placed on her, fought against their chains like a hawk tangled in a net, and nightly vowed to herself that this would not long be her home.
In the end, it was the son who freed her. Not intentionally, to be sure - but it was he who cast the bonds off of her wrists, and taunted her power back to life. Trembling with resentment, he cast her out of the home she loathed and into her new home, where she labored in contemplation of the greater arts and learned to bend her power to her will. And she was happy there, happy enough that she would have dwelt there until the end of her days, ever chasing after the perfection of her art.
But a life of peace was not meant for one such as her, whose power flowed through a weapon and who never did learn to ignore those in need. Taking up her sword, she left the place where she had lived, traveling the world and gathering together - sometimes by chance, sometimes by design - those who would help her defend what needed to be defended. She traversed both icy wastes and blistering sands alike; battled demons from the highest peaks to the lowest dungeons; returned to the place that had once been her home and knew that it was no longer a home at all, and saw the city that would have been her birthright and shrank from it. And she was made welcome in every city, and at home in none.
Until she returned, triumphant, bearing word of the evil’s defeat. And was, all at once, freed of the burdens that held her, and told that she was free to choose.
But she knew herself now; knew that she was meant to be burdened. She had seen the village of her youth, and known that it was no longer a place she could stay; she had seen the vastness of the world and knew that she would chafe at those once-so-wide-seeming boundaries. She had known a scholar’s life, and loved it, but knew that she would never be content with only learning and never acting; had seen a hermit’s life, and shuddered away from the desperate loneliness she had heard in her father’s voice. She had traveled through every town in every part of the world, and knew at last that the only one of these places that she would ever make her home would be one that she would need to heal, and defend, and be of use to. And so she returned to the broken city that she had been born to rule, a broken man at her side.
And said, Here. Here I will stay.
First up is Rhen.
Home was once a cradle of hills and meadows, perched atop the world. She raced within its boundaries, then, never thinking herself bound; learned to be a great hero and a good queen (she would say, years later, when her back had long since bent under the weight of a kingdom, that she never did figure out which was the more important) only by way of learning to be a good person, a good wife, and a good friend; and once, drunk on sunlight and the scent of marionbells, kissed the baker’s son under the blossoming arms of an apple tree while the world hummed all around them.
Years passed, and a slaver came to town and called her Priestess. Catching her by the hand where the true priestess’s ring glittered, he flung her out of her home; flung her across the sea to a fetid swamp where she was owned and shackled. And home became four bare walls, hemmed in by the commands of a shrill, grasping woman and her small-minded, mean-hearted son. She shouldered with ill grace every burden they placed on her, fought against their chains like a hawk tangled in a net, and nightly vowed to herself that this would not long be her home.
In the end, it was the son who freed her. Not intentionally, to be sure - but it was he who cast the bonds off of her wrists, and taunted her power back to life. Trembling with resentment, he cast her out of the home she loathed and into her new home, where she labored in contemplation of the greater arts and learned to bend her power to her will. And she was happy there, happy enough that she would have dwelt there until the end of her days, ever chasing after the perfection of her art.
But a life of peace was not meant for one such as her, whose power flowed through a weapon and who never did learn to ignore those in need. Taking up her sword, she left the place where she had lived, traveling the world and gathering together - sometimes by chance, sometimes by design - those who would help her defend what needed to be defended. She traversed both icy wastes and blistering sands alike; battled demons from the highest peaks to the lowest dungeons; returned to the place that had once been her home and knew that it was no longer a home at all, and saw the city that would have been her birthright and shrank from it. And she was made welcome in every city, and at home in none.
Until she returned, triumphant, bearing word of the evil’s defeat. And was, all at once, freed of the burdens that held her, and told that she was free to choose.
But she knew herself now; knew that she was meant to be burdened. She had seen the village of her youth, and known that it was no longer a place she could stay; she had seen the vastness of the world and knew that she would chafe at those once-so-wide-seeming boundaries. She had known a scholar’s life, and loved it, but knew that she would never be content with only learning and never acting; had seen a hermit’s life, and shuddered away from the desperate loneliness she had heard in her father’s voice. She had traveled through every town in every part of the world, and knew at last that the only one of these places that she would ever make her home would be one that she would need to heal, and defend, and be of use to. And so she returned to the broken city that she had been born to rule, a broken man at her side.
And said, Here. Here I will stay.