The old cottage stood in a state of near-decay, its weather-worn walls clad with climbing vines of mostly creeper and ivy. Its crumbling thatched roof another evidence of its primitivity. The decaying facade was tucked away from rest of the village, resting close to the forest edge.
She could hear some nulled voices advancing from the cottage and echoing through the wilderness as she stood on the doorstep.
Did father have a visitor today?
It was a strangely rare moment whenever he had guests in the house. He was more of a homebody and mostly preferred to live in solitary. Of all the 19 years that she spent with him; he never went to any social gathering or any solstice festival.
She was still amazed of the fact that how he put up with her and her chaotic brother all these years.
She held the round door handle, intending to open the door when she suddenly halted. "She is weak. She will not stand a moment when she is thrown in that mountain, and even if she does survive it with a miracle, the firebreathers will not let her leave that Academy alive!"
Derik Mayfield? What was he doing there?
She scooted a little closer to hear the conversation more clearly.
"Gwen is not a fragile piece of a glass. She has trained well for this day," her father's deep, gruff voice appeared with a tone that was both flat and tired, as if he went through this conversation many times already.
"How can you guarantee that she will survive? How can you guarantee that they will not break her? You understand she hasn't manifested her stone, let alone her abilities, yet you are still willing to send her to that hell? I have been there, Edward and trust me when I say that she will be wrecked without her powers––"
"Gwen chooses what breaks her," her father cut in with his calm yet threatening tone, the kind of tone he usually used while training her. "Don't you dare speak of her like she is a foolish damsel in distress."
She could hear the desperation in Derik's voice as he continued, "That's not what I meant, Edward. I am just trying to tell you that if you could just give me her hand for marriage, she won't have to suffer in that college full of butchers. I will be her knight! I will give her everything she desires and more, she will be happy with me," her hand in what–?
Did he crack the nut around his brains when he fell from his wyvern's back?
The audacity of this three-inch military tool?
"I told you this before, and I am telling you again, I shall never marry her off to someone who will crush her dreams and put her on display like a ragged doll. I raised her to think she is as capable as all the men in this village. That she breaths fire and is no less than those firebreathers you military lads bond with, so she shall survive. With or without her stone," he declared finality through his tone and Gwen's eyes burned with emotion.
There were moments like these when she loved her father the most, when he didn't hesitate to stand up for her in front of the–– unfortunately–– most successful flyer of her village. No one from her small village was able to bond with a dragon since decades. Derik was one of the few who managed to bond with a Wyvern, that too a crystal Wyvern.
Even if he was a misogynist who had nothing else to do except propose every other pretty lass and then slut shame them when he got rejected.
She bet he got off by sniffing the scented solvent on the hosiery of town ladies.
Derik's tone was more taunting when he said, "Why do you even care considering she isn't your biological daughter?" a bitter truth that she swallowed down her throat, steeling her spine for the conversation unfolding behind that door she leaned against, "How can you be so selfish to send her to that Academy? Or maybe it's because your own son ran away like a coward, so you thought to bargain with Gwen instead?"
Edric Evegheden, unlike Gwen, was Edward's biological son, merely two years older than Gwen. Edward started training him for Alarys Military Academy when the rule of sending 20-year-olds to Military was issued by the High Commanders of Kruvarys five years ago.
Edric was more fit to be a rider than she ever was, considering his abilities manifested with his stone when he was just 10 when other boys his age didn't even manifest a stone till puberty.
When Gwen used to study manifestation, strategies and statistic, Edward used to grill Edric in everyday exercise and combat sessions.
Gwen still remembered when Edric used to wake up at dawn in freezing winter to go for a run and return at midnight. How she used to make hot cocoa and they both used to sit near the fire, joking and picking on each other.
Unlike Gwen, Edward made Edric survive in Mount Aero for half a year.
And maybe, just maybe. He didn't really survive that mountain. Considering, that he came back a week early but left with his belongings the night before the soldiers banged their cottage door.
They demanded for Edward's son, but Edward had no son to give. No son to sacrifice for the wellbeing of the Kingdom.
That was the first time she saw her father being speechless, and that was also the first time that she saw her father panic when the soldiers asked for her instead as a substitute.
When he begged– begged them on his knees to give him two more years to prepare her, to give him some time to train her for survival. That night was when she saw her father break for the first and last time.
The night when Edward lost a son, and Gwen lost a father.
"You are not in the position to tell me what to do and what not to do, Mayfield," his tone promised death, "I will marry Gwen to whomever I feel like it and I certainly don't feel like wedding her off to you––"
"But you need to understand––"
"What I need is for you to get your arse out of my residence, Mayfield." Gwen heard a pair of steps getting louder and louder as she scurried backwards, hissing from the several cuts and bruises that burned on her body due to the thorn bushes she encountered on the mountain.
And then here was the gash from when encountered a wild boar.
One nasty boar.
She crouched behind the small wooden playhouse that Edward built when she and Edric were little. A beat later, she could hear the wooden door opening, revealing her father's flat tone, "Gwen must be on her way home, and I need to prepare for her departure."
"You will regret this," Derik's reply was gritted, which made her grit her own teeth. Military boys like him can be such bitches.
They think of themselves as such geniuses whom everyone should worship and bow to just because they survived the Academy. When all they did was eat a four-course meal of the arses of the four-star brats.
Lowdown maggots of a faulty penis. Father's words.
Father just flatly stared at Derik as he finally stepped out of the cottage. Father slammed the door on his face, the wood cracking. Derik's growl dripped with anger and shame as he stomped away from the cottage.
Gwen waited till he vanished out of the site, then made her way to the wooden door. Taking a deep breath, she opened it and stepped into the threshold, her father who was cleaning the small wooden dining table turned towards her.
Her shoulders sagged as she saw him for the first time in 2 months. His hair sprayed with strands of salt and pepper, the white slowly overshadowing the black due to old age just like the stubble on his still sharp jaw. He was old, in his mid sixties, but still somewhat good looking as Gwen wondered how attractive he would be in his youth.
His pale lips pursed in a thin line, wrinkled grey eyes frowning slightly as he took her in. Probably because of her dishevelled state; her hair rough and lesser than the last time he had seen her, probably due to the lack of food. The hair that was once white, now a lighter shade of brown due to the mud coating it. Her tunic shredded from many spots along with her pants, dried blood coating her exposed skin near her abdomen.
His eyes narrowed on her foot, the one with the missing boot.
"Where is your boot?" father enquired as he rose to his 5 feet 8 inches and went to the small kitchen adjoined to the small lounge with Gwen following behind him. "The giant mud puddle on the way demanded a sacrifice," she leaned against the wall opposite to the where her father was warming the food on the stove.
"Hurt?" his voice low, almost inaudible as she suppressed her smile, "Nothing I can't take." He hummed in approval as he placed the bowl on chicken and chick-pea soup on the small dining table, surrounded by three chairs.
Three.
One on either head of the small table and one in the middle. She sighed at the aroma of chicken and spices as she scurried to the table, uncaring about her bruises and dug in.
It had been weeks since she had a flavourful meal. Weeks since she felt safe and protected under her father's cottage.
For a moment, she almost forgot what was about to unveil in the next few hours.
Almost.
Her father brought a cup of mint tea and a glass of water and placed them on the table, sitting on the chair at the head of the table, next to hers. As if recalling the previous conversation, she asked between her meal, "What was Derik Mayfield doing here?" She felt her father visibly stiffen as she continued, "I saw him exiting the cottage on my way back."
He father sighed slightly, "Same old maunder about not training the young lads of the village nobility," he said frowning, as if remembering the whole conversation.
"Well, then why don't you. They might need your help," she mumbled with her mouth full of chicken. Edward shook his head in disapproval as if disliking the way she was talking while eating.
One of the zillion things he disliked.
"I have no interest in being a phrontistery tutor of the rascals whose own fathers are some syphilitic aborted remains of a Halstonian pound party––" she choked on her soup, sputtering it on the table as her father hissed and handed her the glass of water.
Her father's words could often be very, very questionable. And creative, as if she would ever admit it to his face. Edric was the only one with a more– acceptable language between all three of them.
Not that he was with them anymore.
She chugged down the water, recovering herself, "Sometimes I really forget that you studied literature when you were young," she chuckled, grabbing the teacup, "It's quite an irony considering your inventive choice of words when describing Kruvarian men, when you yourself are, a Kruvarian... and a man," she hummed in approval as the sweet warmth of the tea filled her mouth as she sipped.
"That, by all means, is not true. I don't get any pleasure in criticizing the Kruvarian men, I criticize those who have grown up to a certain old age and high ranks, yet they still act like six-year-old boys. Such––"
"––fly-specked cuntarians."
They both said at the same time as Gwen laughed and Edward shook his head, a rare smile creeping on his lips.
It never gets old.
"I think Ooze-pecked scavenger would be a better way to describe how you look right now." Edward stood and moved towards the wooden door, "Drink the tea and have a bath. I will call the healer." Gwen nodded as her father grabbed a coat from the racks, wearing it as he opened the door.
"The water will run cold if you are late," and closed the door behind him. Gwen's ears perched up as she stood and sprinted towards the bathroom, almost tripping on her way. The teacup now abandoned.
She gawked at the little steam rising from the small bathtub, as if not believing it, she dipped her fingers in the water.
Yes, still warm.
"Edward. You are my favourite father." as if she had any other father.
It was extremely rare for them to have hot baths in winter, as they were still considerably poor. Edward brought training equipment from whatever copper he earned, due to which they couldn't really enjoy other delicacies of life.
Which included a hot bath as it required the fire lizards from elemental corner of the village market. They costed at least three coppers for one bath. Three.
For Lord Drackagon's sake, that was expensive!
She wondered how Father had the heart to not buy a dagger instead.
Thanking him again, she peeled off her clothes, and stepped in the tub, wincing as the warmth of the hot water caressed her body. She held her knees a bit close to her chest as the bathtub was too small for her body.
Drowning in her thoughts, she started scrubbing herself clean.