Wilhelm

Days turned to weeks, blurring together with a repetitive sameness, and before I knew it a month had passed. Birds and squirrels and knitting and meals, and supervised conversations with Samuel. I skipped gatherings, and Ulgafrag just patted me on the head.

I felt adrift, detached from everything I knew. It wasn’t a completely new feeling - I’d felt the same when I first arrived - but back then I’d had a plan. One to reclaim my manliness. One I’d failed utterly at.

Ulgafrag had told me a story once when I was younger, I think in an attempt to get me to bond with her. I don’t know if it was true, but it was about a circus she said she’d seen once, and the imagery had stuck in my mind. I imagined myself to be like one of the tightrope walkers, navigating a narrower and narrower path through life as I trembled and fought for balance. On one side, I could give up and let the curse take me fully. And while I would be beautiful and perfect and mindless, I sometimes thought it would be worth it, just so I wouldn’t have to fight and be tired all the time. And on the other side…

There’s always hope.

Well, I tried not to think much about the other side.

I was unsure of how to handle Ulgafrag. I had spent so long considering her an adversary that thinking of her as an ally - possibly a friend? - felt unnatural. My first instincts were always to tell the little lies, to deflect and shield and hide my weaknesses. I found it to be a cage of my own devising, untruths piling on each other until they restricted me almost as much as any magic ever had. I had to stop and force myself to think rationally, to realize that I could be direct, to apologize, or even ask for help.

On her part, things were also rough. I could tell she was trying, but - and this was my fault as well - she was obviously having to work to trust me. I had trained her, those same tactics teaching her to always seek the hidden meanings and motives. So we stumbled on slowly, the blind helping the blind as we tried to forge something new.

And I helped Samuel heal. At first I was too afraid, keeping my distance and shying away from his movements, and Ulgafrag did almost everything. But I slowly found myself doing more of the work. He was simply too pitiful to inspire fear, although occasionally the way he’d move or speak would make me start or jump away, like an echo of those few terrifying moments. And it felt natural, the bandaging and cleaning and healing. Even helping him eat. Ulgafrag, thankfully, handled things when he needed to use the privy. Since he was usually soaking wet from the waist down when he came back, I gathered she just took him outside and dunked him in a stream for a bit when he was done. I refrained from asking, though.

Before my… epiphany, I would have run screaming before I did any of this. It felt like woman’s work. It was one thing to embrace what was forced on me as a camouflage - although looking back I wondered if that had been a lie as well - and another to take to it of my own free will. Not to mention the imagery of a damsel tending the injured knight.

But that was before. Now… well, if it felt demeaning, at least it wasn’t destroying my mind. It distracted me from prose, let me focus on something I was good at. I was surprised at how much that slight feeling of competence helped me keep the dark thoughts at bay. And it also helped with the guilt. I would look at Samuel, broken and bereft, and remember the hours I had lain upstairs, wanting but unable to make myself act, to even attempt to save him.

Samuel was an automaton the first few days, but he slowly began to regain life. He was always wary of Ulgafrag - watching her, flinching when she got too close - but when she failed to do anything horrible again, he started to relax in her presence.

Away from his princess rescue paradigm - or perhaps because of his recent experiences - he started to show unexpected depth. We talked, slowly at first, but then we found a shared interest and our conversations exploded.

Warfare.

He was, sadly, of the classical school of thought, insisting on trying to pigeonhole everything into a standard line of war. I tried to explain to him how magical forces changed the balance - what you need against mages and dragons and fae is mobility, not siege engines and heavily armored knights. But he was stubborn. It wasn’t until I gave him my seven point rundown on why plate is a horrible armor for rescuing princesses that he looked at me with respect and saw - ironically, I suppose - a prince.

The only part I struggled with was my attraction to him. It was easy when I found myself descending into florid descriptions of his eyes or muscles - that, I could dismiss as the magic of the story. It was when it happened without that when I struggled. The way his hair felI over his eyes, the curve of his mouth when he grinned, even the way he mis-used words sometimes. I was, thankfully, very certain that I enjoyed looking at women, and I told myself that it was just another aspect of the magic.

But I couldn’t help wonder if that was yet another lie.

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* * *

I walked down the stairs and opened the door to the sitting room, eager to resume our conversation from yesterday about the relative merits of standard cavalry charges vs centaurs. Then I paused and looked at Samuel in confusion. I kept my voice level with effort. “Samuel… why are you chained to the wall?”

He looked vaguely embarrassed. “Ah, yes. You see, I wanted to talk to you alone. Lady Ulgafrag was not amused. I told her she could, well, chain me to the wall.” He shook his foot, making the chain rattle, and looked at me ruefully. “I thought I was joking.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Then I shook my head. “I’m sorry. But that does sound like her.”

He sat back. “Yes. I guess it does.” He was quiet for a moment. “She’s a... good person.” He looked away, and I decided not to call him out on the lie. He had his reasons for feeling the way he did, and the gods knew I’d thought the same thing often enough. He shook his head. “Every day I’m here I feel more a foolish failure.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but I felt a pang of unexpected kinship with him. We were so different on the outside that I hadn’t considered our similarities. I was, on every level, a failed prince. And Samuel obviously felt himself a failed knight. I considered saying something encouraging, but I hesitated. I was reluctantly growing to like Samuel. If he kept being a knight, the most likely result is he would be killed. Or he’d kill a matron that I likely knew.

While I considered what to say, I lost my chance. Samuel’s voice was solemn. “Willhelm.” He hesitated, then gathered himself. “I owe you an apology.”

I stared at him, nonplussed. “I thought you already gave me one.”

He looked away. “Yes. And I meant it. But I gave it to you because Ulgafrag told me to.” He turned and looked me in the eye. “I want to apologize because I want to.” He appeared to consider his words, then winced. “That sounded odd. What I meant is-”

I held up a hand. “It’s ok. I got it.” We sat in silence for a moment. I appreciated it, sure. But I was a little afraid of what he was going to apologize for. It wasn’t the most comfortable topic. On the other hand, declining would have damaged our fragile friendship, hurt Samuel, and worst of all been unforgivably rude. So, with some trepidation I waited for him to speak.

He stared down at his arms. They were still splinted, crossed across his chest, but he’d started to regain some movement with his shoulders. His voice was quiet. “I thought a long time about how to say this. And I keep rejecting what I come up with. It all sounds like excuses.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he got there first. “I dream about it. What I did. It feels like someone else.” His face twisted. “Which is even worse. What kind of man thinks that way? Denies his actions?”

I made my voice gentle. “Samuel. Ever since I can remember, I’ve lived with magic. In magic. It twists my thoughts, who and what I am. I’ve never been myself.” I smiled sadly. “You can fight it. But you can’t always win.”

His words were filled with scorn, although I couldn’t tell if it was aimed at me or himself. “So what? Magic made me do it, so who cares? I’m not responsible?”

I sighed and sat back. “No. Everything we do…” I trailed off, remembering that moment years past in a gather. Those shocked brown eyes filled with despair as I tore her soul to shreds. I shook my head. “What we do is on us. But it doesn’t make it who we are.” I hesitated, then added one more line, even as I felt like a hypocrite saying it. “It doesn’t mean you give up.”

We sat there, lost in our thoughts. I almost missed it when he spoke next. “Maybe you’re right. I guess… I just want to say I’m sorry. And have you know that I mean it.” Then he looked at me, and I could see that same original sad, naive knight who believed in happy endings and true love peering out of his wounded eyes.

I considered for a moment. Then I stood up and walked over to him, his face going wary as I approached. I looked at him thoughtfully. “So, you promise to never touch someone without their permission, or harm the innocent ever again?” Not that I felt particularly innocent, but I knew the wording would appeal to him.

His eyes went wide. “Of course!”

I pursed my lips and looked upward. “Then there is someone I would like you to meet.”

* * *

It took a great deal of coaxing and gratuitous raisen bribery. But a half hour later I descended back into Samuel’s room with Sergeant Black. The former looked confused, and the latter was vibrating with the paranoid nervous energy of a small animal in unfamiliar surroundings.

I sat carefully, close enough to talk but far enough to keep my blue jay feeling safe. I nodded to Samuel. “Sir Samuel. This is Sergeant Black, the leader of my woodland scouts.” Astonishment blossomed on his face. I turned to the bird in my hands. “Sergeant Black, this is Sir Samuel. The… last shining fighter man you found.” Between Samuel’s disgruntled look at my description and Sergeant Black examining him avidly, I had a hard time keeping a straight face, but I managed solemn with some effort.

Sergeant Black spoke first, suspicion coloring his chirps. “Not shiny.”

...ok, a bit of a grin might have snuck out. I managed to keep my voice even, though. “He had to take off his shininess.” I looked at Samuel, whose eyebrows were trying to unite with his hair.

And I told him the story. Of trying to teach them military discipline. Of bribes and threats and long hours of talking to a shifting audience of tiny creatures until my voice was hoarse. Sergeant Black contributed with mostly inaccurate and vague memories, which I translated verbatim primarily to see the look on Samuel’s face. And afterwards we fell into a deep discussion on the impact of bird scouts to modern armies (Samuel thought they would be invaluable. I was less optimistic).

And sometime in the middle of it all I realized I was laughing and smiling freely. That somehow in this silly discussion I’d escaped, even if temporarily, all the worries that plagued me, the sense of unavoidable… doom sounds too pretentious, but I could think of no better word. It made me feel like things might just work out, somehow.

Three days later I was shown how very wrong I was.