How do I get out of this alive?
Precious few people know about the cave over the ridge, it's my secret, a place I'd found when I'd run away once as a child. I didn't feel at home surrounded by so many eyes in the village. So many opinions. So many thoughts being thrown my way. So I'd slipped away once after arguing with my guardian when I was child. In my fervor to get away I'd wandered too far into the wilderness to get back before a storm rolled in. Hoping to escape being soaked I'd wandered from tree to tree until I found the cave.
In the middle of the dirty entranceway there's a stump where I do all of my best thinking. Today, I've come with heavy thoughts and a big decision to make. It's one of those days that changed the course of your personal history. Days that you'd consult a parent for, investigate thoroughly and then come to a sound reasoned choice. That option had never been available to me. So I'm here to do the next best thing, sit on my stump and think things through logically.
How do I get out of this alive?
I'm a ward. I've been a ward most of my life and the solidarity of it had bothered me — the life had suited me just fine. But now, at 18, my guardian had proposed, forcefully, to take me as his wife. The dynamic of his question rocked me to my very core. Not because he was unpleasant looking, he was fair-faced with a straight nose, soft hair and a firm jaw. He was just more than double my age — a father figure if I had any, and not someone I'd paid or received any particular affection. He'd never been cruel, but he'd also never shown any undue kindness. His role as my guardian, by his own admission, had not been his choice, it had been the dying request of my mother — his dear friend.
His offer, if I could call it that, came with heavy implications if I refused. I could put him off, suggest I was considering for a while longer, but he wouldn't abide that indefinitely. He was a powerful lord and a member of the king's inner circle, his influence had kept me safe growing up but the same influence assured me he was also not one to be trifled with. Everything I knew to be certainty, to be facts, had in the course of one afternoon — one dull, normal, inconsequential afternoon; been upended.
How do I get out of this alive?
My constant is the stump. In the cave. Over the ridge. Far from unkind eyes. Far from unkind thoughts. They don't reach me here and I relish in its silence. It's peacefulness. I exhale. I am of a people that time forgot. A people that live beyond age. A people that live beyond knowledge. A people who's only weakness is love because that leads to children. Childbirth, for women, leads to death. That was what cost me my parents. What would, one day, if I wasn't cautious, cost me my life. A route to marriage was a guarantee of death. With humans, there was an expectation of an heir so I can't marry him even if I want to. I pull off my soft leather boots and dig my feet into the dirt. I roll the dirt around between my toes. The feel of it helps me calm down.
Taking a clump of dirt in my right hand, I press it together into a hard ball before launching it deeper into the darkness. Trying to will my fear, my anger, my sense of utter hopelessness at my situation into a tangible form I can expel. I can hear the soft thud where it strikes the floor, and even that soothes me a little. It's something I can control and rely on. Eventually everything that comes up must go down. Maybe I can just stay here, the hermit of the northern caves, and forage for food and water when needed.
"Copper for your thoughts lady?" A deep voice whispers from the dark, startling me out of my internal monologue. I hadn't heard him. A stutter threatens my cold demeanor but I push it down and still myself. Looking into the dark for the source of his voice.
"I'm not for sale." I try to keep my tone light but firm as I turn to face the most immaculately dressed man I've ever seen. The dark splotch of mud still visible on his shoulder. I'd hit him.
"I hadn't intended to suggest you were," his tone is equally light and full of mirth. Like he found me to be funniest creature he'd ever met.
"Do you make a habit of sneaking up on women in the dark?" I can feel my temper riling just below the surface. If he notices, he doesn't react.
"You're the one always sitting at my doorstep, day after day, on that stump staring out into the forest." He shrugged.
How do I get out of this alive?
"You've been watching me" I stated more than asked, at this he did seem chided.
"It isn't often one of your kind sits at our home but doesn't call on us." He answered, not unkindly, taking another step so that he was fully out of the cave and into the afternoon sun.
The wind brushed back his hair revealing the tiny elegant points of his ears. Fae. He is fae.
"Why would I call on the fae" I suggested, my tone flat. Again, not a question.
He quirks his head to the left, eyes narrowed before scrunching his nose. "The fae of the hill have long been friends to your family. Elana enjoyed our hospitality for over a millennia." Elana was my mother's name.
How do I get out of this alive?
"The fae are astute weavers of half truths, how am I to believe anything you say?" I say more sharply than I intend, the fae now firmly lodged between myself and the exit of the cave, between myself and freedom.
How do I get out of this alive?
He doesn't answer immediately, instead he reaches into his cloak and starts to rummage around. His hand twists this way and that for a long moment before pulling out a satchel. He tosses it to me without a word and I struggle to catch it. I've never been the most coordinated.
How do I get out of this alive?
Delicate strings are tied loosely into a knot. The rough fabric of the satchel is opaque. My slender fingers catch at the knot and pull at it until it comes loose. The contents spill into my palm.
How do I get out of this alive?
He'd handed me a necklace that culminated in a star, it was warm against my skin — probably from being kept in the inner pocket of his jacket. The loose shimmering thing had been pounded flat like some perversion of nature and set into the emblem of my mother's once noble house. She'd been Elana of the Starblessed, Elana of House O'Seer. The most gifted of the twelve houses.
How do I get out of this alive?
I can feel his hot breath on my cheek when I look up from studying the necklace. While I'd been studying the necklace, he'd been studying me. I slip it back into the pouch and make to pass it back to him. He turns his hand up and pushes the necklace back towards me.
"What is your name child?" He asks, his eyes searching my face. His eyes are bright and green like the leaves of a pine tree in its prime. A contrast with his soft sandy blonde hair.
How do I get out of this alive?
I hesitate. Names hold power. Your true name is a guarded secret. He seems to read my expression and his softens.
How do I get out of this alive?
"What may I call you?" He instead asks.
"Siv, you can call me Siv." I finally answer, trying to keep my gaze firmly meeting his own.
How do I get out of this alive?
"Someone has a sense of humor" he murmurs quietly moving even closer, his hand reaches out to touch me and then stops when I jerk backwards, adding more loudly to explain, "Siv is the Norse word for bride child." The sentence hits me like a blow to the face. Had the man who raised me been mocking me this whole time?
How do I get out of this alive?
"Let me pass." I nearly shout, my voice shaking. My cheeks becoming damp with tears I feel ashamed to shed. He's startled, his face looks like I've struck him, but he moves aside. I grab my boots and rush out of the cave into the open air. Away from the strange fae man behaving too intimately for a stranger.
"I'm Aéd, return anytime you choose" he calls to my receding back. I just run, barefoot, back to the ridge and down to the village. The bustle of the people was uncomfortable but with their thoughts always laid bare I knew their intentions. Their true motives sat just below the surface, a place I could reach without even a touch. There was safety in that, they weren't fae.
The thoughts hit me first quietly and then soon with more force like they always do. Not pointed at me but flowing around me, a stream, a river, that I need to wade through to get to my destination. House O'Seer is known to have the sight, a gift for which I am devoid. I'm instead inflicted with what I'd call the sound. Each mind a string in the inner chaotic chorus of my mind. A sound I can't avoid, I can't tune out, a flurry of other's thoughts and emotions forever wearing me down like water slowly carving a path through a mountainside.
One pound or two, I need enough for all three boys. One mind echoed near the butcher. The appraising eye of a widow checking the offerings silently.
If I needed an idiot to help me I'd ask your husband. Another voice shrieks from the left. A flurry of waving arms in my peripherals.
I'm late, oh help me, she'll give me a beating when I do finally arrive. A more quiet voice whispers solemnly, breathlessly, resigned, as a cloaked figure pushes past me deeper into the crowd.
Its always the same girl, where the fuck is Rosita. A deeper voice seems to bellow as I approach. I don't glance either way. I just head straight home. I focus on my feet. I breathe and I try not to drown, to lose myself in everyone else. When my fingers touch the trim of the deceptively modest exterior door of the only home I've known my entire life, the metal grounds me. The sounds outside that press at my back grow softer.
I knock, first lightly, then with more force, before the only servant in the home answers to allow me inside. Sheila's a cold social climber hoping to bed my patron, from the line of words lingering behind her eyelids she'd failed again in her chosen path. "Miss" she acknowledges with a curt nod as I walk by. I nod back but don't stop.
"You look like her you know — your high cheek bones, heart shaped face, blonde hair, green eyes, your curves... the spitting image of your mother," Petyr mumbles, startling me from behind. He reaches out, fixated, and I back away. I hate that I can't hear his thoughts, they'd at least warn me of his approach.
"I thank you for your compliment my lord," I say with a curtsy and turn to walk away.
How do I get out of this alive?
He takes a step forward and grips my wrist, forcefully pulling me close, I wince. "Siv, have you come to an answer for me?" He says slowly, levelly, staring me straight in the eyes. His are dark and watching me so very closely.
I try to muster up a reassuring smile, but end up ducking my head and stuttering slightly, "I.. I'm still considering you offer from earlier today and will let you know of my decision in due course."
"I'm a powerful man Siv." He almost growls, his other hand tracing its way down my back, each inch down my spine feeling more like a threat than a promise.
"I-I know my lord." I state, not looking him in the eye.
"Have I not been kind to you these years?" He continues more huskily, his hand now rubbing at my lower back and slipping gradually lower with each passing second.
"Y-you have my lord, I-I am considering your offer very seriously I-I promise" I state and try to muster a smile, looking him in the eyes.
Though still looking unconvinced he finally releases me and I rush from the room. He's not a patient man. I shudder.
How do I get out of this alive?