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ATHELINA
In her defense, she didn’t know that it was going to rain.
Sometimes, when life becomes too much and the duties of being captain weigh heavily on her shoulders, Athelina needs to clear her mind.
Oftentimes, she finds that reprieve in Rowan, his presence a calm stillness in the eye of the tumultuous storm that is her mind.
But sometimes she needs to be alone and let herself breathe. To just let her mind wander and to get just a moment’s rest from battle-planning and upcoming war and everything else that she must find solutions for.
Reno always knows when it’s one of those days. She approaches his stable and he whinnies and snorts, digging his hoof into the dirt and shaking his head at her. It makes her laugh and she knows that he meant for it to.
“Good evening, Reno,” she says to the horse. She pets through his mane and itches behind his ear. He leans into her hand, head going limp into her palm. “Are you ready for a nice stroll through the forest?” Reno shakes his head against her hand. She laughs again. “Thank you, beautiful boy.”
She readies him for her ride and she feels her mind fill with clarity as she hops on his back.
Reno trots down a familiar path and she lets the scent of crisp autumn air flood her senses.
It’s evenings like these where for just a fleeting moment she can find tranquility in her hectic life. Where she can get lost in daydream and envision fantastical futures.
I’d like to get married on a beautiful evening just like this, she thinks. The thought is startling, something she hasn’t let herself think. But she can’t help herself. After the war, when we find peace again, when we rebuild and come out stronger than before, when I am ready to let go of being captain and be queen, we will have a beautiful wedding and everyone will see our love and we will ride off into the sunset, newlywed and ready for a long life together.
It’s silly. Like something a little girl would think up. It almost is.
But it’s real and he’s real and it will be truly real one day.
She’s so wrapped up in her mind that she doesn’t notice the warm trickle of rain beginning to fall over the forest.
“Time to head back,” she tells Reno.
Reno, the intelligent horse he is, turns around and starts to make his way back to the stables.
The rain turns from a light drizzle to fully torrential and Athelina is completely and utterly soaking wet. The once cool and refreshing autumnal air is now freezing against her wet clothes and hair. She shivers, doing everything she can to maintain her grip on Reno and not lock up completely.
By the time she makes it back, she can feel her nose stuffed with congestion and a tickle in her throat.
As she hops off of Reno, he full body shakes, flinging water and mud everywhere.
Another time, she may have laughed, but exhaustion tugs from her core and all she wants it to get dry and get into bed.
She makes her way to her quarters and immediately strips down. She tosses her soiled clothes into an empty bucket and barely makes it into her nightdress before collapsing onto her bed, tugging all of her blankets over her body and drifting into a heavy sleep.
ROWAN
Perhaps the first sign that something is wrong is that Athelina didn’t come get a slice of the freshly made sweet bread that morning.
She knew that the cook was making it. She had been raving about it, in fact, and had talked endlessly about the cloves and spices that she had managed to find just so it could be made. She had even made sure there was newly churned butter just for it because she said that all breads are enhanced by it.
The second sign was that her riding gear was dirtied with a thick layer of mud, a far cry from their usual clean polish that she preferred to do herself after a ride. Something about it being therapeutic in its repetition.
Though the third, and probably the most alarming sign, was Anna coming to him in a frantic panic that she would not wake up.
Rowan all but sprints to her quarters, his heart hammering in his chest, terrified of what he’s about to arrive to.
He pushes open her doors with bated breath and stills when he sees her in bed.
She’s pale, but not deathly so. Actually, as he looks closer, he sees that she’s quite flushed. Her hair is wet and matted to her face and her brows are scrunched with discomfort.
He rushes to her side and placed a palm to her forehead. She squirms away with a frown.
“Elina,” he says softly, brushing her hair out of her face.
Elina whines, eyes squeezing tighter, her cheek buried in her pillow. “I am never leaving this bed ever again,” she says, her voice mumbled. “I will live here forever. And I will be like a bridge troll and have a fee for everyone who wants to disturb me here.”
“Is that so?” Rowan asks with an amused tilt of the lip. “How much is the fee?”
“For everyone else, it is as many coins as they can fit in the palm of their hands. I will collect the coins until I have a comical mountain of them. Like a dragon. But I won’t lay on top of it because that would be very uncomfortable. I’ll put it on the floors, that way I can hear when people enter and then I can charge them the fee. It is a very efficient system.” She opens one eye. “For you, it is three minutes of that thing you do with your fingers to my hair that makes me feel like I no longer have a brain.”
Rowan smiles and tangles his fingers into her hair, massaging deeply into her scalp.
She sighs happily and her body goes loose, melting into the bed.
“Shall I get the healer?” Rowan says.
“Uh uh,” she says, shaking her head slightly. “You still have approximately two more minutes before you fulfill the fee.”
Rowan chuckles. “Of course.” He glances to the corner of her room and sees the clothes in the bucket. “Were you out in the rain last night?”
“Went on a ride with Reno.”
“No wonder you’re so ill,” he says with a small tut of the tongue.
“I am not that ill,” she says. As if on cue, she turns her head and coughs into her pillow. It’s a rattling cough, wet and thick and rumbling in her chest.
“Oh, oh my dear.” Rowan’s hands loop behind her back and kneels on the bed to pull her into a sitting position.
Her head lolls slightly, not fully holding itself up on her neck. She leans it back against the wall and smirks. She eyes him up and down as he rearranges her pillows behind her. “What a compromising position, your majesty.”
“I need to light some incense,” he says, ignoring her previous statement.
“Oh, because you’re setting the mood?” she asks, waggling her brows.
“Because you stink.”
She pouts. Suddenly, her expression shifts. She looks at him with unfocused, glazed eyes and what he thinks is her attempt at a smolder. “Well, you know, since I’m already a sweaty mess—”
“No,” he says firmly. “You need to rest.”
“You can rest with me.”
“Are you always like this?” Rowan asks. “No, don’t answer that.”
Rowan gets up and wets a rag. He goes back to her bedside, placing it on her forehead and wiping the sweaty skin. She sighs with relief.
“You are certainly bold when you’re feverish,” he says under his breath.
“I am a bold, bold woman,” she says with a lazy grin.
After a long pause, he sighs. “I will compromise."
“Compromise is very important,” she says. “I'm listening.”
“If you let me sponge you cool to bring down that fever, I will lie with you—”
“Oooh.”
“—just lie with you.”
She purses her lips, her cheeks slightly puffed as she considers this. “I accept this compromise.”
Rowan brings the water over to her bed and begins to gently wipe at her sweat covered skin.
“When we get married it must be a pretty day,” she says suddenly.
Rowan’s head snaps up.
“I don’t want it to rain when we get married, Rowan. I want it to be a beautiful day with sun and a breeze so I’m not boiling in my gown. And I want Reno and Monty to be there.”
“At our wedding?” Rowan asks, amused.
“Yes!” she exclaims, waving her hands widely. “I will braid flowers into his mane for the occasion.”
“Mhm,” he hums, nodding as he wipes down her legs.
“Maybe I will braid flowers into your hair too,” she says.
“That would be a sight, I’m sure.”
“But I won’t have flowers in my hair,” she says. “I will have flowers in my hands. Because I will be holding them.” She looks at Rowan with wide eyes. “Do you think I’ll look nice at our wedding?”
“I’m sure you’ll look beautiful,” he says. “You always look beautiful.”
“Even when I’m covered in mud?”
He smiles. “Yes.”
“Even when I get off the battlefield and I’m a mess?”
“Even then, yes.”
“Even when I’m eating soup?”
He pauses teasingly. “Well, I’m not so sure about that one.”
“Rowan!” she wails dramatically.
“I’m joking! I’m joking!”
“I’m going to be queen, Rowan,” she whispers. “Isn’t that strange?”
“I don’t think it’s strange at all,” he says. “I think that you will make a phenomenal queen.”
“It’s every little girl’s dream,” she says. “I don’t know if it was ever mine.”
“I know.”
“It scares me,” she says, her voice barely audible. “But to be with you when you are king? To be at your side? I would do anything for you.”
Rowan kisses her temple. “And I would do anything for you.”
She cups his cheek. “I love you, Rowan.”
He smiles. “I love you too.” He sets the rag on the rim of the bucket and climbs to the other side of her bed. He loops his arms around her waist and peppers kisses to her shoulders. “Rest, my love.”
“Okay…”
And slowly but surely, her breaths even out, whistling with a slight wheeze.
“I love you, Athelina,” he whispers.
He kisses her hair and cherishes the way she feels in his arms.
He doesn’t think about the stern talking to he will get for missing his schedule.
No, all on his mind is the beautiful woman in his arms.