The Daisy, the Knight, and the Helmet

[Remember when]

Prelude

I hate the rain.

Never liked it. It's that feeling of being one part wet two parts soggy, and one part warm. That feeling you feel in your boots when your socks heat up the water pooling down there, and that lukewarm liquid of sweat, mud, and rain water slosh around down there-

Ugh.

It always rains here in my part of Moonshae. While I've learned to accept the inevitable probability of my boots becoming gross pools of sweaty bathwater, that doesn't mean I like it.

But my ward and I get by. Unlike me, the girl adores the rain, and everything about it. The puddles, the mud, the soggyness. She's the only person I've ever known to be able to sleep with a wet towel as her blanket. Children are odd like that I guess. Mordred, the girl I look out for is no older than ten summers; all elbows and knees and covered in freckles. She's never asked why we don't live in a village or a hut with anyone else, or why we keep our visits to town so brief; something that I've been ever grateful for. You try explaining to a ten year old that you can't live with the mundies because they'll set your house on fire and toss you in the lake with rocks tied to your feet.

Not that I've done anything to really warrant that. I'm a quiet healer who lives out near the woods, often I associate with the Wyld Folk that thrive deep in the heart of the forest but even that I try to keep to a minimum; least I find Mordred giggling as she's spirited away by the Wyld Folk to be assimilated into one of them. Or worse. You can never tell if the nymph wants to make something her own, or just drown it in a lake for fun, so I have always aired on the side of caution. That one always earned me ire from Mordred; children don't understand how someone who seems so friendly and sweet can also be just as wicked and cold. But she's yet to be found floating in the river or hanging from the deeper trees in the forest.

Mordred is and always has been a handful, ever since I got her as a babe. She's far too clever, far too crafty, and far too cheeky for her own good. It's a full time job keeping her out of trouble while still making enough to earn us our bread. We have small garden out behind our cottage where we grow most of our own supplies. (the caring of aforementioned garden falls to General Mordred, defender of the Cabbages) For the rest I make potions, tonics, love potions, luck charms, that sort of thing, and sell them to the locals. Not all of them actually /work/ but believing that they do often does the trick enough. Amazing what a lie and enough trust can get you.

Our house (a term I use generously) lies on the very edge where the forest blends into the rolling hills. In the day time Mordred and I sometimes go walking through the hills getting flowers for my tonics or just for tea. In the evenings when the sky is empty I take Mordred into the Shallow Wood to teach her about the Wyld and it's song. I'm no druid but I swear I've got the soul of one. We sit on rocks near a small stream while I teach her more about what's around us. Not just the Soulful parts but the physical parts. Sometimes we sing, we laugh, we talk, or sometimes we are just silent. These trips don't happen often, but when they do they remind me how special the girl is. It's when you have times like that together you really get to see someone's soul. And Mordred has a beautiful soul.

Too bad she's a brat most of the time.

With our remote location from the general public I hoped that we wouldn't have any Helmites or Hoarrites come sniffing our way with some absurd claim of "witchcraft" and "blasphemy" and "arcane voodoo magic". Not that I practice anything that might make any pious man dislike me, no. The knightly sort tend to think more with their bibles and swords than with their brains and eyes. There's a reason I live off in the outskirts afterall.

Which made it awkward when a dying Helmite collapsed against my door.

[Remember when]

Chapter One: Beginnings

----

It was summer.

Warm with a gentle breeze that rolled through the grassy knolls filling the air with the scent of untamed grass and wildflowers.

The village was a peaceful place; farmers and craftsmen for the most part. Busiest only during the market season when we traded turnips for cabbages or arrow heads for pots.

I can still hear the music.

He played a guitar and had a voice akin to familiar worn canvas. His songs came from the soul, never afraid to play too loud or be heard too far. I can remember his infectious smile.

I don't believe in love at first sight but when I saw him I felt something inside me click. Brilliant blue eyes had locked onto my own and I felt myself misplace my tongue and fumble over words the way a young deer does in it's first steps. I saw in his eyes not a spark but a flame of soul and passion and potential to be so much more and that flame of his it beckoned to my own.

What was only mere seconds felt like an eternity.

He laughed. Not the polite soft laughs we make when amused or a reserved chuckle for the quiet. It was a throaty laugh that emitted from his belly and it was almost as infectious as his smile.

We talked.

I don't remember what we talked about. He had been born here, lived out in the fields; a shepherd's son. His mother was sickly and he had two younger sisters who all had the same wheat blonde hair, freckled faces and worn hands from hard labour.

I can still remember the barn.

It smelled of musk and animals and hay but it was ours. I can remember watching dawns and dusks, up all hours of the night; just talking. I can remember the bitter apples we'd share. I never liked them but I liked the way he smiled at me when I ate them. "You look like smushed faced dog!" he'd say. I'd throw apples at him.

I still remember warm calloused fingers intertwining in my own. Promises made in the long cold dark only heard by the warm glow of the hearth. Promises to chase after our destinies into the grand wild yonder, to take life by the throat and make it our own.

Promises that fade now, day by day. Promises I long to forget.


---



"Ava, Ava! Thar's a funny man spillin' wine all over th'thres'old!"

Thank you Mordred, for that brilliant observation. I hushed the girl and without a second thought sent her inside the hut for supplies. "Maybe not such a good idea, if the rest of his company is nearby." I muttered to myself as I began inspecting the young man to determine the nature of his sudden leakage. I may not be popular with the religious sorts but I'm not about to leave a young man to die on my doorstep. What am I, Death's wife?

"Here Ava!"

A dirty hand shoved sullied bandages and a tin full of ointment I typically use to keep Mordred's scraps from getting infected. Looking between the bandages and the hideous wounds wrapped around the young knight's leg and torso, I winced. "Thank you, a mhuirnín. Go stoke the fire and get the house nice and warm for guest?" I didn't need to look at her to know her freckled face lit up in excitement. "Ah guest!? We're keepin' him?! Oh Ava cannah name him? Pleaaasee?"

If I wasn't elbow deep in Helmite armour and blood I might've been more impatient with her. "No, A mhuirnín, we're not keeping him. Go stoke the flames."

Of course it was after my little headache ran off that the knight began to show signs of life; in the form of pained little whimpers. And of course as is in my kind nature I hushed the poor boy as I brought him inside; careful not to injure him any further than he was.

He wasn't an attractive sort, though definitely not a Moonshaen. Dirty blond hair and I assume his eyes were hazel from what little I saw of him. His hands weren't rough enough to be a man pledged to the service for too long. Perhaps only a few years or so. Stars above, he was likely still a squire. Out of the tin can those Shinies call armour the man was lean, but what he had wasn't to be mistaken for baby fat. It looked like he had a bad run in with a forest ogre the way his armour had been bent, oh, and the ogre blood on his clothes hinted at that too. He was pale and cold, the image of slow death impressioned into the boy's fair face.

"He gunna be arright Ava? You kin fix 'em right?"

"It will nay do us any good iffen 'e freezes t'death first! The hearth a mhuirnín."

This time the bark in my voice got her focused. I suppressed my scowl and went to the grizzly task of dressing wounds. Despite what all the books tell you, it's not as heroic or easy as it sounds. It's dirty, it's intimate in a clinical kind of way, and it's stressful. One wrong twitch one miss placed stitch one missed shard of bone and the whole thing's ruined. I'm fortunate enough to have my magic at my disposal to help mend the wounds shut lest they worsen themselves.

Several hours and two warm buckets of water later I was left with a mostly alive Helmite Squire and a sudden distaste for cherry pie. As I reclined back in front of my now fully animated hearth I could still see Mordred stalking the resting man. Like a dog might sniff out a kitten. The imagery gave me a snort.

"Leave th'man alone Mord."

I couldn't risk her causing the fellow trouble, lest he decide to pike us both or worse. You never know with the knightly sort, they're almost as bad as the Sidhe. And they never travel alone. The Hoarrans maybe, but not the Helmites. I can hear it now; the witch waylaid our comrade in arms! To the pyre with her and her beast child! Silent night. Just what I needed. I'd have to toss him out as soon as he's stable-ish to prevent issue. Perhaps one of the fey in the wood would do good on the favour they owed me.

The rain continued to pour down outside in buckets and I decided I wouldn't be able to throw the tin can out in that weather in good conscious. Be a waste of bandages and time if he died out in the wet and cold. I sat defrosting and drying by the hearth and stewing over my thoughts while Mordred humming a tune. The beat sounded familiar, yet I couldn't put a name to the melody.

[Remember when]

Chapter One; Beginnings (cont)

I walked through the forest painted silver from the light of the moon. A stillness came as I moved as if the trees held their breath and the creatures within held their tongues in anticipation. There was a certain tension building in the misty air that gathered in my shoulders and chest. The trees all bowed their heads, their foliage casting dark shadows against the forest floor. In the distance I heard whimpering; soft terrified cries of some non-descript being, sobbing in pain.

I found myself drifting closer and closer to the source of the sound until I found him. A young boy who was likely only old enough to finally be getting out of the house on his own adventure laid curled up on a bed of dying leaves. The scent of natural decay filled the air as the boy in tarnished armor much too big for him sobbed, and wrapped in thick, gnarling thorns.

As I got closer the vines tightened around the boy, eliciting another soft cry from the boy. I felt myself grimace, I immediately wanted to strike the vines away with my voice, to send them away. But I knew I could not.

Instead I came closer still, and knelt next to him, my fingers resting gently upon the temple of his head. The song came from my chest, rising from my throat and slipping through my lips as if it had its' own life. A wordless tune, a ballad that reminded me of a story I couldn't quite remember. As I sang the vines slowly began to unfurl; it then came apparent that their source was the boy's head. Troubled memories, pained experiences, all strangling the young man before me. I felt pity well in my heart like a stone setting in my chest.

I continued to sing, and gently, I worked the vines off of the boy's head, removing them in their entirety and leaving severed thoughts and memories to writhe out on the forest floor to die.


I woke up to laughing. In my experience with Mordred, that was never a good sign. I couldn't count the number of times I've woken to the number of mischief Mordred is known to have accomplished by the time she's hit the giggling phase.

There was the knight and my ward, apparently in the middle of a conversation when I interrupted.

"Oh, g'mornin' ma'am."

The Hound was looking better at least. Colour in his cheeks and strong enough to sit up on our kitchen table where I had him laid out on. I must've looked unimpressed as both of their expressions fell as silence bloomed into the hut. My gaze fell upon the scrawny bundle of trouble on legs. "Go get Leia n'tell 'er I need fresh bandages and marigolds." The request sounded more like an order, as Mordred quickly scurried out from the hut in her bare feet to find our nearest neighbor. My sights set on the wounded knight, and I began to start a pot of tea.

"Yer condition's improved. Y'should be settin' off 'fore th'Northerners come 'round. Cannae waste time defendin' tae lives."

"I haven't been able to sleep that well in years. What did you do to me? Surely there is something I can do to repay your kindness?"

"Aye, gittin' yer things t'gether n'leaving by t'morrow morning. Gives y'tiome t'fix git yer barings so y'ain't a walkin' duckling out there."

The Hound frowned at me but I ignored him. I'd heard tell from my last stop in town that the Northerners would be pushing our way soon. It was costly enough to keep us protected from the Winter Fey that sought trouble with us, I wasn't ready for proper raiders, let alone defending Mordred. As I handled the kettle my hand started to burn; at a glance it looked to be growing red and swollen. I always forget about my allergy. I could feel the soldier's eyes on me growing suspicious.

Maybe I should've told him to leave sooner.