Archive of Our Own ^beta

†

Centuries ago, there was a wizard who lived deep in the woods on the furthest outskirts of Harnett County. 

Popular tales held that he had once been an ancient king who was feared by many and later exiled to the forest of Northern Carolina by magistrate after dabbling in dark magic in an attempt to more expeditiously grow his power. 

Tale also told that there used to be a dragon that guarded the royal bank. 

It was never clear if these yarns were ever meant to be intertwined, but not much else of note had ever happened in the small, rural enclave. Rumors ran as wild as the tall grass and ivy vines that crept up against the town walls.

Most curiously, despite the jewels and treasure remaining sealed in the vault below the high court, nothing but the alleged beast was ever found to be missing. 

After a time, the public began doubting the existence of its royal family’s absent ward altogether. 

Until, just as abruptly as it had vanished, a mysterious stone appeared in the same stretch of land. It was large; roughly three feet in diameter. Even more bizarre than its sudden arrival was the large sword wedged several feet deep into it.

It was a groundskeeper who found it, the boulder, and alerted the royals. He backed away slowly as a bevy of knights and noblemen read the inscribed note along the shiny hilt of the buried weapon.

It took several experts to translate a language and script that read: 

only a worthy soul may wield

The declaration was followed by a final word that some historians argue was a term of endearment meant to substitute the signature of the swordsmith that would normally be present on a blade of such ornate detail. 

Others suggested that even if it were, it, along with the rest of the message, was simply meant to taunt any reader. 

To guarantee all who attempted may then consider themselves worthless. 

Eventually, after droves of citizens had taken turns trying their hand at pulling the metal from rock, a blacksmith found himself unworthy and lost his patience. That night, he arrived back at the stone and attempted to crack it open with a hammer and chisel. 

He nearly lost an arm when the rock threw him backwards for his efforts.

In an attempt to limit the public exposure to the stone, the royal family put up another wall within their enclosed burg, to keep anyone from hurting themselves. 

Years passed and the story of what had happened was still passed down through generations, but with more and more skepticism and hyperbole baked in. It was most commonly prefaced with the implication that the majority was embellishment.

To many people, it was collateral damage from a feud between the rich and the powerful, and not worth spending much time considering at all.

This is what led to someone like Charles Lincoln Neal, the third in his lineage to keep watch over the grounds surrounding the woods, to not take the task all that seriously.

Born into a legacy of one of the worst trades in their kingdom short of pig farming, in his consideration, Charles often took naps at his post.

For years, he spent his days staring at nothing but dense woods in every direction in his place beside the gated and sealed entrance to the small thicket of forest near the royal castle. He knew they had a secondary entryway that could be accessed for hunting or maintenance by other groundskeepers with proper authority and keys. 

He was a glorified scarecrow. He sat there to let the townsfolk who strayed too far from their hunting party know not to roam beyond the stone wall boundary. 

Charles (known as Link to anyone who would humor him) simply didn’t find himself all that intimidating a watchman to begin with and he’d never even been inside the fortified forest anyway. He had no idea what he was actually keeping in or out of the area and why. 

Sure, everyone had heard the rumors, but they were just as likely to be fake as fire breathing dragons and vengeful magic were. If there were a sword in a stone, somewhere, it was probably welded together with some kind of special molten steel. Maybe a century or two ago they weren’t bright enough to figure that out. 

He was more likely to believe that the royal court blocked it from view to keep people from breaking their backs trying to dislodge it.

No matter the case, it was this mentality that prevailed for years of Link’s time spent as watch keeper, right up until the Sunday morning in question.

It was often the quietest time to watch over the land as the citizens of Buies Creek were all fairly ecumenical. Only a few dozen people were not in a church on a Sunday and for people like Link it was because his job required him not to. 

It was, perhaps, this knowledge of who wouldn’t be roaming around in the woods on such a morning that made his stomach lurch upon hearing a group of young men he grew up with approach the grounds. Being out of the way had been helpful to Link even in the ways he resented. For years, he’d been bullied by those around him for being different. 

Softer and more empathetic than you’d expected from a commoner born into a tough station. He’d been dealt a difficult hand, but played it well. He hated what he was required to do, but he didn’t let it ruin his overall outlook or demeanor.

That never suited his critics very well. They wanted him to be ashamed and beleaguered. Hardened and cruel.

It was a long, embittered battle of wits that Link's kindness had always provided him an upperhand in winning. 

That particular Sunday morning was no different. 

It had started with the soft sound of movement in the trees above him. Sometimes that was small woodland creatures shifting through branches that line the forest canopy. Once or twice he’d been warned that there would be movement towards the rear of the enclosure while royals were bird trapping game fowl. 

If any of their day’s catch escaped, there could be arrows soon to follow.

Although he heard the sounds of someone moving around inside, he’d not been provided any notice that there would be visitors expected. From his location, he couldn’t see into the woods very far beyond where the gate sealed entry for everyone including him. 

He worried through twenty minutes of faint rustling before he finally caught sight of a homing pigeon. Just as he stepped outside his post to outstretch an arm and invite the bird to land on his leather-cuffed wrist, he heard more rustling, this time from the opposite direction from the same side of the gate as him. 

Already caught off-guard by the sounds within the interior of the keep, Link panicked and stepped back, letting the bird bank its path away from him, as though it sensed his unease mid-air. He retreated into his fortified watch post, allowing the men to approach and poke fun only from outside the safety of the stone wall. 

Even a long sword wouldn’t reach all the way to the back of the small space and Link wagered that none of these dullards had ever been graceful enough to learn how to wield a bow.

Proven right in his estimation, his decision to stay back also yielded arguably worse results in a different way. One by one, the group yelled out abuse as they scaled the stone wall of the enclosure. Link knew it was his duty to intervene, but he felt frozen in place. Years of having been shoved around by the same group had conditioned him not to react.

But this wasn’t his personal life.

This was his legacy. His father and his father’s father had done the same before him.

Finally, moments after each of the three men had climbed over the edge of the wall, Link scraped and scrambled his way up the wall behind him.

He’d still never been provided keys to the gate that he sat in front of and knew no other way to give chase.

He remembered back to his first days being trained on the job, some five years ago, asking if he was allowed to keep a weapon while on duty. Someone had told him they’d check and get back to him.

Right now, he balled his hand in a fist and prepared to duke it out once he caught up with the trespassers. If he told his superiors that he’d tried to subdue them and had the bruises to prove it, he assumed they’d agree he did what he could.

He heard snickering and yells only a short distance away. He briefly wondered if he should have sent a pigeon before following them. What if someone stumbled upon Link’s vacant post and thought even worse of his abandonment of it?

When he finally arrived at where his childhood adversaries were gathered, he could hardly believe his eyes. The sword bound to stone was real. 

More unbelievably, the men had taken to kicking and shoving themselves against the hilt, attempting to force the sword out of its display. 

Link instantly looked upon the shiny iron blade and handle with the same reverence of a sculpted piece of marble. No matter the reality of the legend, they were trying to destroy a priceless piece of history, something their forgettable little burg had very little to speak of.

Embracing the anger and disgust he felt at the group so pridefully breaking the rules, Link threw himself into the fray with a reddened face and twitching fingers. 

“Get out!” he yelled as fiercely as he could.

The men laughed at his command, but paused their antics long enough to turn towards Link. They circled him until he was leant back against the rock and the immovable sword, cowering as the three grew closer. 

Outflanked, he closed his eyes and braced the edge of the stone with both his hands. 

The larger of the three, John, son of their local pushcart driver who took drunkards to and from the local taverns back to their homes, squared up before Link with a dark look in his eyes. 

“Wonder if it counts as wieldin’ it if I can get you fall on the dull end?” His beady, joyless eyes shined as he seemed to consider it longer. “I’d wager he’s skinny enough. It’ll pierce him just the same.”

The other two men tittered in cruel amusement. 

In horror at the prospect, Link’s hand instinctively went to the hilt behind him. He glanced briefly at the sword and took a second to be thankful that so little of the sharpened blade was exposed. Any more, he presumed the men would be trying to push his neck up against it to further test their theory.

Still, Link couldn’t believe they were making this big a fuss over what amounted to a very elaborate monument to a probably fictional blood feud between a wizard and a king hundreds of years ago. 

“Just get out of here and I won’t tell anyone you broke in,” he promised. He meant it, maybe. Anything to get them to leave. 

Undeterred, the men pushed closer against him and Link leaned even further back along the stone until he was gripping the hilt of the sword to keep himself steady and prevent them from throwing him against it. It shifted with him as he gathered himself to sit up and hold it more securely. More than ever, he was confident this was a piece of Northern Carolina history and he would not be known as the one who let it fall into the hands of the worst people he’d ever known.

“LEAVE!” he yelled again at the top of his lungs.

John shoved him, then, and Link’s grip on the sword faltered. He fell back and felt a twinge in his shoulder where it hit the stone. Any harder and it might’ve dislocated. Fed up and impatient, Link used what little surprise he still could muster and shoved back at the aggressors, catching them off-guard, and caused them to stumble. 

His eyes went wide with shock as a knight stepped out from the treeline. His helmet was off and he had a full beard and was taller than anyone Link had ever seen before.

He scrambled back against the stone both from the new interloper and the encroaching trio. As he tightened a grip on the handle, he watched as the enormous figure stepped between the three men and himself. In an effort to at least be a suitable back-up, Link pulled at the monument and delighted when his angle was such that it dislodged the shiny metal. It took a great deal of effort to keep the sword upright in his grasp given its weight. 

His right shoulder was still sore from being shoved down.

If the imposing figure hadn’t been scary enough, the sight of Link wielding the sword made them look downright terrified.

Emboldened, he stepped along the small cleft of the boulder and jumped down to the grassy area surrounding the stones.

When he regained his footing, Link fake lunged at them with the sword. John fell onto his rear end. Link grinned in justified delight. 

“HE SAID GO!” the mountainous man demanded them to leave, again. He was not as eager to joke as Link was.

This time, the three did as told.

The two flunkies took off the way they’d come and John crawled backwards another few feet before he jumped up and did the same. 

Link was left there, standing and holding the priceless object, awed by its ability to intimidate on his behalf. He wondered, then, if this was why the royal family had originally fenced in the stone. If any old commoner could pull it from its home, no wonder they feared someone might run off with it in the night.

If anything, Link felt even more befuddled by the lack of security around the area. Surely, something this historied should have had more than a single guardsman at the main entryway. 

He looked over the sword with wonder. It certainly didn’t look like a cheap replacement for a more decorated or ornate original, but he was no polymath or theologian. He didn’t even like peas in his porridge. 

He looked over at the other man, considering whether he should surrender the weapon to him given his standing, or if it was out of order for him to let his guard down.

The taller man did not have on a sallet or bevor, but was armored from the neck down with a mossy green doublet peeking out from underneath. 

The other man’s eyes were just as wide as Link’s. For a few seconds, they both stared at the sword in Link’s grasp in disbelief. 

The giant slowly held a hand outstretched as if preparing to tame an unbroken horse. 

Link wanted no trouble and no matter who the knight served within the royal family, he certainly outranked Link. It actually reassured Link to know that there were guards inside the walls of the monument doing the real guard work. From the size of the man, he was much more suited to it. 

In a haste to show that he had only stumbled across the scene of others trying to destroy the treasured object, Link stepped back towards the stone and shoved the sword back in the opening he’d pulled it from. 

To his horror, the other man gasped out as if in pain. Link flinched and stepped back, alarmed that he’d done something wrong.

The knight’s gaze remained on the sword, but now his mouth was gaping wide with disbelief. “You put it back!” the stranger said in fear. “After all this time…”

Link was confused. If the stranger didn’t know it was just for show, perhaps he needed to explain himself. “I just wanted to get it out of harm’s way.”

“Harm’s way?” 

“Yes,” Link answered.

They both stared at the sword. “If you need to tell someone I removed it, I understand. But if you don’t have to, please. Let’s pretend it never happened. I know I’m not even supposed to be in here.” Link motioned to the entryway that he usually sat at. 

No closer to coherence, the knight still stared at the sword. 

“Or why don’t you take it back to the castle? Until they figure out a better way to keep guys like that out. Or secure it in the stone. I’m not big enough to scare ‘em off. Maybe you should sit out front.”

“Sit… what?” the knight asked, confused at Link’s suggestions. “You’re… it’s been centuries.”

“And clearly this way isn’t working,” Link concluded, looking back the way the other men had left. He wiggled the sword to and fro for emphasis.

The man only stared back at him with a mixture of shock and amazement. 

“What?” Link finally blurted out in question, uneasy being glanced at as the knight looked back and forth between Link and the sword. 

“It’s been centuries and no one’s ever been able to wield the sword and you… you just did, but then. You put it back,” the man recounted. 

Link tilted his head, ready to protest. “It comes right out,” Link assured him. He once again pulled it from its place in the stone. 

Once more, the knight’s face lit up in reverence.

Link felt uncomfortable being the center of that focused an amount of attention, so he stepped away from the stone and allowed the hilt to slide back to where it began. 

“See for yourself,” Link invited the man to try. 

“I have,” the knight countered, simply. Link blinked. 

He remained skeptical. 

“Try again,” Link suggested. It felt bizarre to be telling this tall, intimidating man what to do, but Link felt like he’d been left with no choice. He wasn’t sure what the man was suggesting otherwise. He was some lowly groundskeeper. He was least likely to be the first to do nearly anything, let alone something so honorable.

Still, to the knight’s point, he stepped forward and attempted to pull the sword out for himself. It didn’t budge. Link stared at him in confusion.

“Are you pulling my leg?” he wondered, bewildered. That this stranger would do such a thing seemed impossible, but no more than the alternative.

The knight shook his head and tried again, this time with both hands. Not even a wiggle. To cut off any further protest or skepticism, it seemed, the knight then stepped up on the rock and used his full body weight to counter the sword and still it didn’t move. 

Link stared at him in a fast-accruing fear. If this was real, what did it mean? What was going on?

To answer the unspoken request to try a third time, Link’s hand followed the knight’s gaze and wrapped back around the hilt. The sword shifted instantly and dragged back out of the stone with minor effort. 

This time, Link held the sword like a cursed object. He looked over at the taller man and considered another, simpler way to pass off the weapon to a different owner. “Here,” he offered it to the man outside of the rock sheath. 

The knight stepped back and held his hands upright. “No, no.”

“What?” Link asked, now eager to pawn off the weapon. The knight stepped further back onto the grassy patch and away from the offering. 

“Only the worthy,” the knight said, cryptically. He then eyed the sword. Link looked down and read the long-hand script that said the same. 

“You’re worthy,” Link insisted, pushing the sword at him. 

“No, I’m not,” the knight argued. He huffed impatiently. “The man who installed this stone was a wizard who —” 

Link instantly had flashbacks to his childhood. He’d heard much the same ancient lore that the knight was about to launch into and it made his ability to hold the sword, heavy though it might be in his grasp, all the more daunting. He fumbled and nearly dropped it. They both watched in distress as the blade dipped down towards the lush forest floor. 

“I could lose an arm — or worse — trying to wield it,” the man explained, hearkening back to the warning etched onto the blade. “It’s impossible to know if it’s cursed to maim anyone else who tries.”

Link looked even more uneasy holding the sword, but felt it was just as terrifying to set it down. Then, based on the logic he’d just heard, he’d be risking the wellbeing of anyone who tried to pick it up unknowingly. 

“What do I do with it, then?” Link wondered, baffled.

The knight looked around and then let his gaze linger back on the path towards the castle. “This happened for a reason,” the man said, succinctly. 

Link stared at him, hoping he was right. People always talked about knights in shining armor and maybe one didn’t need to be a princess (or prince, for that matter) to benefit from their aid. 

Not waiting for a response, the man waved at Link to follow him. They both walked at a fast pace into the woods in the opposite direction Link arrived. 

They were heading towards the castle. 

Link’s stomach knotted, worried he was about to be paraded before the high court and made an example for his crimes. 

“Am I in danger?” Link asked, brazenly, hoping that his honesty might earn him the same in turn. 

The knight blinked at him and then looked away. “I don’t know.” Link didn’t like that.

“Am I going to be imprisoned?” Link wondered next. He would return the sword at once and play dumb if he was walking into an ambush. He studied the knight’s long, unique-looking face for any kind of indication that he might know. 

“I don’t know,” the man repeated. 

It was at this point that Link finally noticed how long this man’s hair must be. It had been braided twice over into a crown around his head, making it appear shorter than it actually was from the front. Link had long kept his own hair relatively short, the ends coming down just below his earlobes. It got him wondering. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a knight with such long hair. 

Although he was deeply curious to learn more, he did not see it as his place to ask too many questions of an officer of the royal court. When they reached the far end of the walled forest, Link was surprised to find the other entrance ajar. Although he briefly feared it could mean that they would encounter his tormentors again or some other nosy interloper, the knight did not seem perturbed. Link mirrored his calm to the best of his ability (which was not especially well) and nodded when he was told to wait there. 

The man disappeared into a stable and then reappeared with a blanket. He nodded for Link to set the sword under it on the ground. He did. 

Then, the man went away again, and Link stood there waiting for further instruction.

Ten minutes later, Link realized the man had entered the castle from a side entrance that was buried underground. After some pacing, he wandered far enough past the stable to see the steps dug into the hillside. He forced himself to remain in place. 

Quickly, though, he began imagining that the man had gone to get the entire chivalric order to return with him. They would cart Link away and directly into a pillory to atone for his misdeeds. 

Before his thoughts spiraled any further, the knight returned with two large saddlebags, one on either shoulder. He approached slowly, clearly taking his time to keep the heavy gear from slipping from his hold. He panted shortly before stopping in front of the stable. He looked over at the stable and then back at Link. “Do you ride?”

Link blinked over at him. “Horses?”

The man sighed. He had apparently taken from that response the correct estimation that Link was not very well-versed in horse riding. He’d only tried once or twice at his grandparents' farmland, growing up. Never beyond their property. 

“I’ll bring along a packhorse that will follow me, then,” he said, as much to himself as to Link. “That way you can just hang on.”

They were going to ride horses, Link assessed, simply. He nodded.

“Here,” the knight said, confidently moving back towards Link. “Before we do anything, let’s get this situated.”

When he approached Link, he stopped and handed over a scabbard. It seemed large, especially in the knight’s massive grip, but Link could see that it had notches and some kind of clasp woven into the expensive-looking piece of leather. “What is this?”

The other man stared down at the object and then back up at Link. “The scabbard?”

Link blinked. He touched the brass clasp and then ran his fingers along the small holes poked to the right of it. 

“This?” the man said, reaching out to touch the clasp. Link nodded. “A buckle,” he explained. He blinked, looking at Link with nearly the same level of disbelief he had displayed earlier. 

Link tried to move on because once again it was making him feel uneasy. “You wear it around your waist?” Link asked.

The man nodded.

Link slipped it around his narrow waist and frowned when he cinched the leather until the material was securely around his hips. The smallest poked hole was at least three inches back from where the accessory needed to be secured. The other man seemed prepared for this and took the object back when Link noticed his lingering attention yet again. He pulled a small blade from the sack and stabbed the leather swiftly until a small hole opened up. Then, he pushed the blade all the way through until it was wide enough to fit the latch on the clasp.

When Link tried it on a second time after the man handed it back to him, it fit snugly. Link walked over to where they’d hidden the sword earlier and did what he presumed the man wanted him to and slid the sword all the way to the hilt. To his amazement, even the inscription disappeared under the dark leather. 

“And here,” the man added, quickly, as he shuffled through the other objects in his knapsack until he returned with another small strip of leather. It slipped easily over the handle of the sword and further disguised the blade from any prying eyes. Link knew instantly why they’d both been selected. It looked no different than your average broadsword in this set-up. 

Link felt no closer to understanding what he was supposed to do next, but felt as though he was slowly getting the broader strokes of the knight’s plan.

Still, he yearned for more clarity and cleared his throat, prepared to ask for more details. Before he could speak, the knight opened the stable and sing-songed a soft, melodic greeting to the horses in each of the stalls. Link had never seen or heard anything quite like it besides, perhaps, from a troubadour or choir member. 

“Who should we bring?” the man asked the stable. Link looked around to find who he was talking to. Surely it wasn’t himself and there was no one else around. Eventually, their path into the stable stopped before a stall that was labeled Barbara. 

“Sean is too young,” he said to himself and then paused between two stalls opposite the one he’d stopped at. “Maybe…” he started, reaching to the door furthest from him labeled Jade. “She’s a bit of a nervous wreck. Little brother.”

The last stall was labeled Jasper. 

Once the door was opened, Link marveled at a beautiful amber-colored rouncey. 

“They’re both Percherons,” the knight explained. “That’s why their hair is longer than normal.”

Link stared at the beautiful creatures and their long, impressive manes. 

“But they’re both very gentle. Good for a first ride,” he assured Link.

“I’ve ridden before,” Link admitted, hoping that the man wouldn’t ask for any additional detail.

Link didn’t feel as though he had much else say in the matter nor did he want to. 

Following the knight’s lead, literally, he continued along in front of each of the horse stalls as though he was also attached.

Once they were outside and the stables were closed, he tried his best to help get the panniers attached to each horse. Both animals waited patiently for the riding gear to be adjusted and for both men to jump up to mount them. Although Link was no expert, he did remember how to do that part. 

Finally, they both started bouncing forward and away from the castle on their respective horses, with Link and Jasper now attached by a physical lead. He could not hold his curiosity in any longer. “Where are we going?” 

“Far away,” the knight said, solemnly. 

Link didn’t ask any follow-up questions, but the lack of explanation hung heavy over them for at least another thirty minutes into their journey South. 

When they took a water break to let the horses drink, Link tried to make conversation about something other than the daunting ride ahead and what had happened with this sword. Despite spending such an emotionally charged period of time together, this man was still very much a stranger to him. 

“Barbara is a unique name,” he pointed out as he watched the white-haired mare lap at the water in the stream next to them. “Were you the one who picked it?”

The man smiled and petted his horse. It was the most tender thing Link had yet seen him do and it was reassuring to know that for all the size and might the man exuded, there was a softness beneath the surface. Link believed it bode well for his own safety. 

“Yes. After the queen of Hungary,” was the answer. 

Link was puzzled. “Are you Hungarian?” he asked, skeptically.

“No,” he answered with a smile. “My mother was from Georgia, but my father’s side has always lived in Northern Carolina.”

“Did that have something to do with it?”

The knight smiled. “No, I was just a kid. I liked to eat a lot. Thought it was funny.”

Link thought about it for a moment and then smiled when he finally got it. “Oh, hungry.”

They were back on the trail shortly after and it wasn’t for another hour that Link had thought through an entire imaginary backstory for this other man. He’d grown up as the son of a stablehand. That morning, he’d come to check on his old friends and overheard the shouting, then entered the forest and intervened. Link thought about all the ways he’d try to make it up to his hero. Especially once they were off to safety and away from Buies Creek. 

When they next stopped, they had just crossed the border into Southern Carolina, further than Link had ever gone from home in his life. His father had moved down towards the coast after he’d finished his time as groundskeeper. Link hadn’t seen him in years, but by letter he knew the fishing was good and people danced at night. 

Link had never danced. Not for lack of wanting to, but he’d never really had the occasion to. Sometimes he’d sway with a hymn at church. Link had never before considered dancing for the fun of it until he received that letter some odd years ago and still hadn’t found the time to try.

In front of him, the knight was setting up a small base camp for the time being and feeding each of the horses massive carrots. “If we take a rest, now, we can use the cover of night to go the rest of the way.”

Link nodded and watched, mesmerized, as the man moved from feeding the horses to starting a small fire beside the place they’d settled. Finally, after hours of blind compliance, Link found his voice to ask some of the things that had been slowly eating away at him.

“Do we have a destination or are we still just looking to get far away?” he started, concern evident in his tone. 

The knight shuffled to find a place to sit on a nearby felled tree. He gently peeled at his armor and managed to pull off the shiny chest plate without much effort so that it sat on the ground next to where he sat. The green of the doublet underneath looked even more verdant than before without any metal encasement dulling the shade. 

Link was struck by how detailed and expensive-looking the embroidered crest of the McLaughlin family was across the middle. Link had only half paid attention to the heraldry, growing up, but it was a familiar image. It fluttered in the wind, high up on turrets and poles, surrounding the edges of where they’d both (he presumed) called home. 

Link’s own uniform was secondhand, but bore accents of the same color green. In that small, predictable way, they matched, and although it was not intentional, it made asking questions of his guide feel safer. They were on the same team, he promised himself.

It didn’t guarantee him an answer, however, he soon found. The tall man was quiet once more. “What does this all mean?” Link squeaked out, his fear overtaking his pride. “Why are we doing this?” Link swallowed and added, “Running?”

Looking as exhausted as Link felt, the tall man slipped from the tree down to the ground and used the tree trunk as a seat back. He leaned back and looked up at the darkening sky. When he spoke again, his voice sounded deeper, more serious, and Link hung on every word. “You knew those men? At the keep?”

Link nodded.

“They’d recognize you to know your post?” 

Link nodded again. The man did the same, confirming his own hunch.

“Word will spread fast that you’ve pulled it,” the man said, nodding towards Link’s newly prized possession, hooked against his waist. “If they talk. A lot of people aren’t as precautious as I am. They will try to take that from you, first chance they get. We needed a head start.”

Link touched the secured blade in fear, feeling his own sense of protectiveness of it. 

“Then there’s the other part,” he continued.

“Other part?”

“The second part of the myth,” the knight explained. “You may not have heard that part. Only a handful of people have.” He blinked. “Fourteen, to be exact.”

Their eyes met. 

“Fifteen,” the man said. He sighed heavily and held his hands out to warm by the fire. Link felt around the small patch of grass across from his guide and sat down, too. “When that stone appeared, it wasn’t the last anyone heard of the wizard. There was a scroll pinned to the stone originally, which the sword went through.”

“What did it say?” Link wondered.

The man sighed, glumly. “It was in an old Latin dialect, most of it, but for the first line. Which just stated something to the effect of: finders, keepers.”

“Finders, keepers,” Link repeated. “What does it mean?”

“It was a dig at what the wizard took from us,” the man said.

“Harnett?” he wondered, aloud.

“My family,” the man clarified. “The dragon, Belvedere.”

Link blinked, suddenly having a difficult time following. He was now to believe dragons were in fact real? And had names? Perhaps his impression of this worldly knight had been slightly off. He hadn’t been raised to care for the horses, but the dragon that had never reappeared. Link was not aware that dragon handler was an established trade within their kingdom, but he’d seen wilder things today and did his best to keep up. 

“Where did he take it?” Link inquired.

“I have no idea. Always heard rumors that he fled westward, to the edges of the map. But never did find out where that was in particular.”

“Is that where we’re going? Looking for the dragon?” Link felt for his new, unanticipated accessory, worried suddenly that he’d have to use it if they did find it.

The man balked and shook his head. “I’m heading to Georgia where my mother was raised. Only she would know these back paths through the woods. No one else goes this way now that the central path through the midlands is finished.”

Link shrugged. He’d never left Harnett before.

“We’re safe here, for a while, at least until the sun has fully set. But there’s no telling how long they’ll go before noticing we’re not there, if not when your shift was meant to change. Even if those fools manage to bend the ear of someone of import, it’ll be hours until anyone could mobilize a search party. Sunday is the day of rest, after all.”

Link watched him turn and kick at a stray, dry branch into the fire. The flames licked higher and he felt a fleeting pocket of warm air breeze past him. 

Link had more questions, but didn’t want to push his luck. He tried to narrow them down.

“How do you know my shift?” 

As the man fidgeted, his nose and cheek bones caught the warm light of the fire at striking angles. Back where they’d fled, at the entrance of town, sat a weathered, stone depiction of one of the earliest kings. It reminded Link of that. Sculpture.

Unable to dwell on it any longer, Link pressed him on it to get his mind off the other thing. He continued to stare, eyes wide, and made sure not to let the other man off the hook from answering.

Eventually, the wait was over and the knight sighed. “I know everyone’s shift. I know which guards will cause trouble if I venture inside.”

There was a long silence.

“You never paid much attention.”

“To what?”

“Exactly,” the man said, a smile overtaking his face.

It was Link’s turn to shift where he sat, growing uncomfortable with how this suggestion portrayed his work ethic. Link had always hated his job, but he never suspected that others might judge that he was bad at it. It wasn’t very challenging, mentally or physically, that was all.

The thought that he was notably lax, compounded with earlier events, made him feel incredibly insecure. 

Link thought about protesting the inference, but could only agree that he was hardly the model of a duty-bound guard. Instead, he looked down at the small tufts of green grass that poked up around their small campsite. He pulled at the closest patch, nervously. “Please, don’t tell the royal guard. I don’t want my mother to suffer for my oafishness.”

The man frowned, looking confused at first and then mildly amused. It added to Link’s ire.

Without waiting for further response, Link went on. “She's been a wet nurse since I was young. For the sake of those in her charge, she should be allowed to continue. She’s very good at what she does.”

When he looked back up, he’s surprised to see the knight had his head ducked. He was about to say more when the other man interrupted him. “I’ll see that nothing happens to her.”

Link’s stomach clenched at the promise. It reassured him in a way he hadn’t expected.

“Although, what say I have in the matter might be diminished when they find out I took off with you.”

“Should we return? Explain ourselves and ask for deference?” Link wondered, now that he’d considered the subject. 

The knight looked genuinely agitated by that suggestion and shook his head. “No.”

It hung heavy between them that it was not Link’s decision to flee in the first place and the silence eventually invited the knight to further explain his actions, which he did. 

“Once they realize the sword has been pulled, there’s —” he paused and looked around, eyes glazed from imagining what would happen. “There’s too much that could go wrong.”

Although the prospect scared Link, it felt like the first time he was understanding some of the reasoning for their actions. Despite the knots in his stomach, he smiled with appreciation for being told. In the same spirit, he decided to let the man know they were on the same page, there. “So, that’s why we’re running? To protect it?”

The knight hung his head, almost shyly, and Link waited for him to answer.

“Like I said, it’s important to get as far as we can, so they’ll not bother to follow. If our trail is cold by the time they pick it up, there’s a far smaller chance we’ll have to face any opposition. Then — I know some people in Georgia who might be able to point us in the right direction.”

There was a very long silence, then. Longer than the other pauses combined. But it soon grew comfortable and when the tall man spoke again, Link waited eagerly for each syllable. 

For good reason.

It was clear, immediately, that the knight had decided to share why this quest mattered so greatly to him. 

“My family — back when the stone first appeared, they made some very fatal errors trying to wield it. I don’t want the same fate to befall you and yours.”

Link couldn’t help himself from speaking his mind and whispered, “How gallant.”

The knight smiled, grimly. “I’m sure you’d do the same.”

Link nodded, but he wasn’t sure what he would do. Most of the brave things he’d done so far were because he’d been cornered. It’s nice to think that a knight thought so highly of him. Feeling more accustomed to speaking with him, Link referred back to the man’s earlier point. “Your family — I didn’t know that was a position one could hold. Dragon handlers.”

The man smiled, wanly. “We’re the only ones that ever did it, as far as I know,” he explained.  “And there hasn’t been a dragon to handle since that appeared.” He nodded towards the sword. “So, we’re just figureheads.”

It was surreal to think that somehow Link fit into that story now. Like he’d become part of a myth. 

He looked over the knight and thought it striking, now that he knew more about the lore surrounding Buies Creek, to see the embroidered dragon adorning his doublet. He’d never really paid that much attention to the imagery. He'd never seen someone wear a doublet with their royal crest stitched in, before, and he supposed he had also never engaged with a knight this close-up.

Perhaps he’d just not paid very close attention to anything.

After a few seconds, Link voiced a newfound concern, aloud, “Should you be wearing that? People will know we’re from the North if they see it.”

The knight looked down and nodded, agreeing to Link’s worries. “Good thinking,” he said and lifted the doublet off. Without a top-shirt, only a thin layer of chain mail was left draped over his gambeson. “I can lose this and the lower plates, too.”

Link watched as he unscrewed the long, ornate metal attached to his shins. It felt a touch foolhardy to take off protective gear amidst a dangerous getaway, but he also knew that it would do a great deal to help an already imposing man blend in.

Link noted that although he was indeed quite tall, without all the metal and uniform, his limbs looked spindly and delicate. It reminded Link of a woodland creature and it suited their current environment to an uncanny degree. 

Link felt compelled to fill the quiet as the knight gathered his discarded items and stuffed them into a small hollow next to the log behind him. “You said you’d tried to pull the sword before?”

Instantly, Link regretted bringing it back up as the knight’s body stilled. It was clearly an uncomfortable subject. Still, he answered casually, “Yes.”

“Maybe it would’ve worked for you, then. If those dimwits had’ve lunged at you before I got there. I regret if I simply reached for it first. I wish I could bestow the honor on you.”

The knight kept his head down as he shook his head in disagreement. 

“You have clearly lived a life in preparation of esteemed duty. I don’t know if I will ever live up to the expectations that I presume this charge is meant to hold. I was ignorant to the fact that dragons were real at all… I feel like a fool.”

The knight waved his apology away. “I only know it’s real because of my family,” he assured Link. He knocked a hand against the pile of clothing. Before Link could connect the dots, the man continued, “Besides, I’ve been attempting to pull it from the stone since I was a child.”

Link was taken aback. He had a few questions, right away, but one stuck out first and foremost. “How many times have you tried?”

There was a long pause and Link stared quietly as he waited for a reply. 

“Hundreds.”

Link kept staring, awestruck. He wasn’t sure how that was even possible. He’d been assigned as a guard for years and only been inside the keep for the first time, that morning. He didn’t think anyone had access to the grounds that readily.

When Link offered no follow-up, the man continued, “Regularly, since I was a child. There was a time when it was probably a couple times a day.”

Link remained agape, speechless, before him. 

“Then, as I grew older, I kept it to Sundays. It’s quiet and there’s less chance of running into anyone.” He made a face over at Link and smiled. Link’s face was still frozen in shock. “Although obviously there was never zero chance,” he concluded, referring to their mutual run-in, earlier. “But it had long become more of a ritual for me. A meditative stroll to contemplate my biggest failure. By this point, I never expected it to give way. Not really. So, it wouldn’t have mattered when you reached it. It had plenty of chances to deem me worthy before that point and never did.”

Link shook his head, disagreeing with the reality described to him. It didn’t seem possible. “You’re not worthless.”

“Oh, but I am,” the man disagreed, melodically. Link fought a smile from the charm buried beneath the self-deprecation. He knew the sport well. “It’s the family legacy.”

“Because of the dragons?”

“Because of a lot of things,” the man countered. “The McLaughlins are hardly known for their public image.”

Link blanched at hearing that, feeling like he’d just been shoved awake from a nap. A familiar discomfort. “You’re a McLaughlin,” he said softly, already conjuring up a surreal backstory where this knight was a distant cousin to the royal family. How bizarre to have spent the afternoon with someone of such high standing. 

The man looked up and when their eyes met, Link’s head emptied of his musings and he felt his breath catch. “I thought you—” he began briefly, quickly quieting when he read on Link’s face that he had no idea what he was about to be told. The man’s eyes were shiny with emotion as he cleared his throat and nodded once more. “Yes. I am. Rhett McLaughlin.”

Link’s stomach sunk. That was the same name as — “The second in line for the throne.”

Rhett shook his head in the affirmative. 

Link was silent for a few seconds and then Rhett pointed to his face with a furrowed brow.

Link stared back at him, trying to make sense of his actions when Rhett explained himself, “Your nose is bleeding.”

Link touched a finger to his right nostril and pulled it back to glance down. Two large crimson droplets of blood trickled down his pointer finger. He passed out, seconds later.

When he came to, some time later, he realized first that his head was propped up on what he presumed were Rhett’s garments. They smelled like sweat and sandalwood with a hint of lavender. An errant strand of cloth was stuffed up his nostril. He felt it gingerly with his fingers before he shifted and pulled his body upright.

Across from him sat a prince.

He really was a fool.

He yanked the cloth from his nose and shakily pushed himself up to his feet. Rhett stayed seated, looking up at Link’s lumbering form curiously. “Are you even a real knight?”

Rhett’s face became guarded and he frowned. “Yes.”

“And you were serious about the dragons?”

“Yes,” Rhett said again. His voice sounded more disappointed than anything else. Link resented it. “I thought you knew.”

He meant a lot in that statement, they both understood, and Link shook his head. “I had no clue.”

“Does it change anything?” Rhett asked, genuinely.

Link struggled to think of ways it should. “I guess not.” Then, after a beat, he added, “Though, they’ll certainly notice you’re missing. If they haven’t already.”

“They won’t,” Rhett assured him. Link was skeptical. “It’ll only matter how or when they realize you’re not at your post. They’ll check the interior and will find it missing.”

“Should we get going, then?” Link wondered. After the shock of the revelation that Rhett was not exactly who he’d originally thought him to be, Link was looking forward to the distraction of traversing further south with the heir. 

They took off shortly after, making good time down the edge of Southern Carolina and eventually crossed the border of Georgia and fast-approached the town where Rhett was born while on a trip to visit his mother’s side of the family. 

Rhett was familiar with many of the taverns in Macon after returning to see those same relatives in years since his first arrival. He instructed Link where to tie up their horses so they could consume a feed bag they would purchase from a nearby vendor. Afterwards, they stopped inside to get a drink and a meal.

Rhett excused himself to greet one of the owners of the establishment and pulled her into a tight hug when they were close together. They chatted for a few moments and then Rhett returned to the table that Link had settled at.

Rhett apologized for his preoccupation and assured Link that his friend hadn’t been in town the last time he was here, so he wanted to catch-up before she got a chance to bring them their drinks. Link shrugged, feeling more than ever like he was simply along for the ride. 

After finding out the truth, Link also felt peculiarly reckless about how he should engage with Rhett, going forward. It had felt like a betrayal to not know how disproportionate the power and influence skewed between them, but it also made him feel like now he could say nearly anything he wanted to the prince and granted the same understanding in return.

So, when Rhett got comfortable at the table across from him, Link blurted out something he’d wondered since earlier. “Why did you keep trying to pull it? If it never budged?”

Rhett cleared his throat and Link pretended like he wasn’t completely terrified to have asked that of someone who was mere heartbeats away from the throne.

“When I was younger, it was a very immature reaction, that is for certain. But since I’ve grown older, it was my way of convincing myself that worth is not a fixed value. Every day, I make efforts to be a better person. I had no way of knowing if there might have been a way to earn that worthiness. So, it didn’t hurt to try.”

Link’s stomach remained uneasy.

“And I kept trying, all the time. Just to check.” Rhett paused, briefly. “Maybe it would’ve been less selfish to try once a year, instead. Or every five years. But I didn’t think about it that much. It never felt that real, to be honest. It was more about what it represented, than the thing itself. If that makes sense?”

“What did it represent?” Link asked, unsure.

“Failure.”

Just as he said that, Rhett’s friend arrived with their food and drinks. Link’s mouth watered at the potatoes and gravy set down before them. “This looks amazing.”

“It is amazing! Enjoy!” the woman said, spiritedly. She hugged Rhett again, on his left side and then waved as she returned back behind the bar. 

“Former flame?” Link asked, picking at the food.

“Stevie?” Rhett asked, not hiding the disbelief in his voice.

Link presumed that was a ‘no’ from his tone. He shrugged.

“I’m not her type.”

Link made a face and cleared his throat. “Does she prefer them… tall, dark, and handsome?” he wondered, mischievously. Rhett’s expression remained skeptical.

“You’d have to ask her,” Rhett ground out, looking unamused. “But I’d still venture to guess: no.”

Link blew a raspberry and returned his attention to their appetizer. They ate the rest in companionable silence. Stevie returned with a rack of ribs for each and Link wasn’t sure he’d ever seen something so appetizing in his life. 

After they finished dinner, Stevie visited their table a final time and whispered something to Rhett out of earshot. Rhett nodded serenely and they gave each other one final farewell.

They continued on their journey for hours and Link was about to finally ask if they could plan a place to take a more substantial bit of rest or at least long enough for him to relieve himself when, suddenly, Rhett and Barbara took a hard left off from their path. They both trotted up to a farmstead on the outskirts of a small village that sat beside a creek. It reminded Link a bit of home. Rhett produced a key from his belt and approached the front door of the farmhouse. “We’ll be sleeping here for the next few hours.”

Wordlessly, Rhett retrieved a few things from the parcels attached to the horses and left them just inside the front entryway. He then led both the horses to a sizeable stable in the rear of the farm. He set both horses up with a small bag of feed and fresh water, then they both returned to the home and took turns using the outhouse. 

Once they’d taken time to clean up, they both sat together in the great room and Link waited to see if Rhett had any more information about what their next moves would be. 

The other man looked equally exhausted. For some reason, Link had reached his limit for flying blind. So, he asked something he’d still been wondering about. “Where are we?”

“Deep into Georgia. Nowhere near the major cities. Much less likely to get seen,” Rhett answered. “And anyone out here sees folks running from the royal guard ain’t gonna point the right direction for them to follow, if you catch my drift.”

“They don’t like North Carolinians out here?”

Rhett bit back a laugh that Link wasn’t sure he’d earned but smiled at, nonetheless. 

“Is this your mother’s family home?” Link wondered how they’d been granted access to such a large parcel of land with no notice. 

Rhett looked down at the ground and seemed to consider his words before responding. Eventually, he settled on, “No.”

Link didn’t pry, but he allowed the silence to emphasize his curiosity.

“It’s a friend’s house.”

“Stevie?” Link asked, mentioning the only friend of Rhett’s he’d met so far. 

Rhett’s expression betrayed little, but Link could tell from how he had not pointedly denied it as he had the other guess that it was the closest he’d get as confirmation.

He tried not to let it sour his mood any further, already exhausted with the journey and chaos of the last day. 

Rhett was too large for the bed or the couch, so he made a small pile of seat cushions and spare pillows on a flattened blanket in the great room. Link slept with one pillow underneath sheets that smelled faintly of wildflowers. It made his head hurt.

He was not about to tell Rhett that he’d just as soon prefer the floor, given that he was relegated to it. He stared up at the ceiling and forced himself to sleep.

In the morning, Link was up first and made a hasty exit into the cold morning air to relieve himself. He was back in a flash and noted the tucked away sword he’d leant surreptitiously behind the bed. He was embarrassed that he’d prioritized taking a leak over first ensuring it’s safekeeping. Internally, he vowed not to let it out of his sight again. He struggled with the accessory that Rhett had secured for him, yesterday, but eventually used the ‘buckle’ again. His right side was sore after a long while riding with the sword, so he shifted the entire piece of leather around until it sat on his left side, instead.

After leaving the bedroom, he bumped the back of the scabbard into a nearby shelf. He knocked over a hand-written recipe book and scrambled to retrieve it from the floor. He could tell from the sound outside the kitchen that it had also woken Rhett up.

Link read the front as he settled it back on the counter where it had been tenderly placed atop a board meant for cutting. 

Cassie

Link stared at the word and considered who that was if this house was Stevie’s. Stevie was already a nickname. Surely that wasn’t another.

Rhett ambled into the room with a grunt. He blinked at Link, formulating a greeting. 

Before he could, Link blurted out his lingering wonder. “Who’s Cassie?”

Rhett’s tiredness got the better of him and he stepped forward. It wasn’t often he used his size to intimidate someone, but some things appeared out of his control. Protecting people he cared tended to correlate with those instances, one would find. “Who’s asking?”

Link backed up and instinctively he grabbed for his sword. Rhett breathed out a snicker. “Don’t insult me by reaching for that.”

Link’s breath caught. 

“We both know you’ve never so much as raised a fist, let alone a weapon.” Link’s eyebrows furrowed, embarrassed. He had not anticipated so passionate a response to a simple question. He turned his head down and surveyed himself as though looking for some tell that Rhett had picked up on. “Your belt is on backwards.”

Link touched the leather and blushed. 

“The buckle is supposed to remain up front.”

Link wordlessly shifted the material around his hips and swallowed deep. Rhett grunted and shoved off the small area between the kitchen table and stove. 

Link took a deep couple breaths as Rhett left to use the outhouse, next. He flattened the leather against his hip and sighed. He went back into the bedroom and gathered his coat and boots. His gaze wandered, guiltily, over the belongings in a closet to his right. It was full of work shirts and belted tunics atop small leather boots that matched the style of his own. 

When Link stood, he noticed for the first time that there was a second armoire behind the door that had been propped open all night. Despite his earlier encounter, Link still couldn’t help himself. He shut the door, gingerly, and opened the small wooden case. Another set of clothes, this time distinctly feminine with a few frocks intermixed. The boots at the base of the tall box were even smaller than the others. 

Link looked back and forth between the two sides of the room. 

Stevie and Cassie lived here, he concluded, swiftly. 

For a long moment, he wondered why Rhett would keep that knowledge so close to the chest. Perhaps he was simply worried about endangering any more people by involving them in their getaway. Link couldn’t fault him for deploying the same level of protection for his own safety, in the first place.

Link shut the cabinet door and then opened the bedroom door again just as Rhett returned inside. When Rhett looked over, all the earlier bluster and bravado had dissipated. He looked worried.

“Everything okay?” he asked, concerned something might have happened outside. 

Rhett cleared his throat to indicate it was. When he returned to the kitchen to pick through the small jars of food that lined the windowsill, in his movement, he looked down and seemed to notice the recipe book for the first time. He paused and touched it, graciously, then gently turned it over. 

“I’m sorry,” Link interjected, unable to hold his tongue for another second. “For speaking out of turn. It’s not my place to pry into your friend’s belongings.”

Rhett nodded. 

“Or her… sister’s,” Link added, foolishly. It was another overstep. He puffed air, annoyed at himself for immediately going back on his intention to mind his business. 

Instead, something far more surprising happened, then. When Rhett turned around, his eyes met Link’s and immediately Link understood. 

Stevie and Cassie lived here. They shared a bed. 

Rhett nodded almost imperceptibly. “They’re very close.”

Link nodded back at him. “I can tell,” he said, honestly. “But won’t share that with anyone,” he swore. “That’s no one’s business but theirs.”

Rhett nodded a second time, more slowly, and a smile nearly made its way back to his face. 

“Let’s head out. We can find some actual sustenance,” Rhett suggested. “They hardly eat any meat,” he said, disappointedly. Link grinned.

When they stopped in the stables to greet the horses, Rhett took a moment to find the mop and broom from a store room. He snapped the ends off both and tucked them under Barbara’s pannier. At Link’s look, he smirked. “I’ll replace them next time I’m here.”

Link tried to lean into the optimism that Rhett believed he’d return and chuckled at the sight. 

They made their way back onto the path they’d taken to get to this lot of land, but eventually headed West when they went another twenty minutes. They passed through large grove of peach trees.

Link’s eyes went wide at the sight. Rhett eventually tied up their horses and turned the end of his gambeson up to collect a small handful of fruit. He walked through a small patch of trees, gently feeling at each exterior.

“I’ve never seen peaches grown wild before,” Link admitted softly as he waited for the other man to finish selecting a few for them to share. He made a face and shook his head. 

“You first, then,” he said, seriously, tossing a peach to Link. Link bit into it and immediately sighed. It was the freshest he’d ever eaten and he wasted no time biting down for more. 

“Incredible,” he mumbled as he ate. 

Rhett looked excited to see that he enjoyed it so much. Link gladly caught another in his hand to start once he’d finished his first serving. He watched Rhett bite into a second and then throw a chunk towards Jasper. Eagerly, the honey-colored cob caught the food and noisily munched it between his large white teeth. Rhett threw a second piece to Barbara and started in on his third peach. Link ate his second and was delighted to see Rhett bundle another two handfuls into a small pouch. 

“For snacks,” he said, sagely, as he bound the small bag to the pack on Jasper’s left side. 

Quickly, they rejoined the back paths west of Georgia until Link was sure they’d crossed another boundary. 

He had conquered the impulse to ask Rhett for updates on their whereabouts and destination. Instead, he spent the journey watching the edges of the hills, looking for anyone who could be waiting to ambush them or marveling at the sprawling countryside that he’d never before laid eyes on. 

When they stopped next it was to have an early dinner. Rhett told Link to stay with the horses while he stopped in town and purchased them some food for the trip. It took almost fifteen minutes and Link may have eventually broken a sweat, thinking Rhett had been abducted, somehow. 

They ate at the same patch of land where Link had waited, quickly, and without conversation. 

When he finished, Rhett took a moment to feed both the horses and led them to the stream to drink. He leaned down and scooped several handfuls of water for himself. Link wandered over to do the same. 

Not eager to cause any more strife with questions Rhett didn’t want to hear, Link brought up the horizon off to their left. “Beautiful view,” he said, genuinely. 

Rhett smiled and agreed, “It is.” He stood up and wiped his hands on his front. He nodded towards the tall trees and mountain peak in the distance. “Talladega is up that way. Great for small game hunting.”

Later, after their pit stop, they went even further towards the sunset. This time, they stopped at a more public area that had a small row of homes that lined the edges of a large, circular marketplace. Link’s eyes lit up at the artistically decorated lanterns that hung along the walkways. Buies Creek only put up lanterns for holidays and festivals.

Link shuffled up next to Rhett when he knocked on a random door and was let inside. He was introduced to another acquaintance of Rhett’s named Chase. He’d gotten word from Stevie about their quest to find more information on the whereabouts of the ancient wizard they’d long discussed as a figure in his family’s ancestral lore. 

For reasons familiar to Link, these inquiries felt more pressing now than they must have the last time they talked. Link could tell Rhett was trying not to rush Chase through his abridged version of events as he relayed them to Link. Although Rhett had briefly gone over some of the big things, it was nice to be caught up to speed on what was driving their journey west onward. 

Chase took them into a back room and pulled out a large leather-bound tome. He presented it to Rhett as if he were expecting him to ask for it. It was already open to the page that he’d referenced earlier.

This translation of the original Latin introduction to the scroll included the words West and Coast.

“California?” Rhett asked, enchanted. 

“My family grew up out there and further south. I’m certain that’s how they would’ve written it. The ones that lived out there, for sure.”

They made chit chat and Chase offered them food. Rhett refused and instead produced the leftover sides purchased at the market earlier, including a large piece of cheese. He insisted that Chase keep it or else it would spoil. Link smiled as they both bickered over Chase accepting the gift. It made his insides warm to be associated with the generosity, even by proxy. Chase kept making faces at him as if asking for back-up. Link pleasantly refused. 

When they left, they were both smiling as they mounted the horses to continue on. 

After they’d left town, they made their way through as much distance as they could before sunrise. When they slowed to allow Barbara and Jasper to catch their breath after maneuvering up a tricky bit of rockwall, Link finally reiterated what little of the plan he had gleaned from their earlier visit. “California?”

Rhett looked out at the horizon and nodded. “California.”

“Always thought that was a myth, too.”

Rhett tutted a laugh. Clearly he knew otherwise from the sound of the noise, but found it mighty amusing anyway.

“We lived there for a short while when I was young,” he said, quietly. “I guess maybe this is why. Otherwise we were that close and never knew.” He shook his head.

“No time like the present,” Link said, eagerly. He was the first to return and mount his horse, for once. Rhett smiled and did the same.

They made it as far as Texas before they returned to the first forest they crossed by and made a small campfire. Rhett had taken a blanket from Stevie and Cassie’s farm and laid it out on the ground so that they could both avoid sleeping directly on the dirt. 

They situated themselves on opposite sides of the thick, woven fabric and fell asleep immediately.

On the fourth day of their journey, Rhett was most concerned with finding a place to spend a full day’s rest. He knew enough from his years of trained wayfinding that both they and their horses needed the break to remain at full energy. 

They looked for a place to stop all along their trip through the north of Texas. Eventually, Rhett found a farmstead along the outskirts that had a sign promising delicious smoked meat. It wasn’t long into a conversation with the owners before Link had wondered about the small cottage that they’d passed on the way into the large acreage where the farm was set up. 

“That’s ours, too. It’s our guest house for my brother when he visits,” shared the woman who had brought out the corn they also ate hastily. 

It took little time for Link to charm them into receiving an invitation to stay there for the night. Rhett’s follow-up offer of room and board commensurate with what a local inn would expect sealed the deal. When they returned back to the small cottage, Rhett was in good spirits and full of the same. His cheeks were pink. 

After he set Barbara and Jasper up out back, he returned with the two broken sticks from the other day. Link frowned, looking between them both. 

“You’ve never had any combat training, have you?”

Link was also a bit tipsy from the ale and blew a raspberry. “Already knew that.” 

“How about singlestick?” Rhett asked.

Link looked over at Rhett’s hands. “But there’s two of ‘em.”

Rhett barked a laugh and sighed. “Oh, gosh.”

Gosh. Link’s stomach flip-flopped. This man was a knight and a prince and spoke like that. There was something so earnest about it that it made his teeth hurt.

“Show me,” Link said, suddenly, eager to beat Rhett to it. From the twinkle in Rhett’s eye, he was happy to. 

He took off his gambeson and had only a thin undershirt left on. Link took off his tunic, presuming that they were potentially about to break a light sweat. Rhett handed him the longer of the two and demonstrated how best to hold it. He looked over at their gloves and tilted his head. “We can try again with gloves, next time. First, let’s focus on holding it and your stance.”

Link did his best to mirror Rhett’s movements and situate himself and his stick in the way Rhett had before him. Eventually, Rhett drew the length of the stick up and down where Link held his. It only took one quick knock for Rhett to push his hold off balance. Link scrambled to stay standing. 

Rhett feigned a second, would-be fatal blow to his neck but held the stick along the skin gently once he got close. “Again,” he breathed out, amused.

They set up and did it again. And again.

And again.

Soon, a half an hour had passed and Link was sweating enough that he’d purposefully untucked his undershirt. Eventually, when he paused to catch his breath for an especially long length of time, Rhett took pity on him and concluded their back and forth for the night.

Their journey resumed early the next morning and continued on for another five days. Every so often, they would stop for a night. This grew especially necessary passing through the arid land of northern Arizona since the nights were too cold to camp outside. 

Each night, they would spend an hour practicing singlestick until Link had grown proficient enough to disarm Rhett. The first time it happened, they ended up tangled together on the ground. 

Link had taken to practicing shirtless to keep from having to find yet another set of clothes to change into after. He was lucky that Rhett had braved taking a fair amount of silver coins on their trip and was generous enough to buy him a replacement tunic once he’d sweat clear through the one he already had. Even with the spare, he wanted to avoid having to spend time cleaning either along the rest of their journey. 

As provocative as the image of a shirtless Link pinning Rhett to the ground would be to some, they were always laughing before, during, and after. So, it was a friendly bit of competition, Link always knew. Although, more and more, he felt himself fighting the urge to roll around and try to continue the fight, hand to hand. It was a primal instinct, he presumed, and tamped it down without issue. Link felt further motivated to improve and learn to wield the sword.

During one of their stopovers when they took turns bathing in a stream, Rhett finally let his hair down to wash through the thick layers of curls. Link had not realized how long his hair actually was, but as it dried out in the warm air as Rhett stubbornly worked through as many knots as he could with a traveling comb, he got an eyeful. Eventually, Rhett tied it back with a bow and huffed at several pieces that continued to give him trouble. "I should ask you to practice your strike and chop it all off."

Link laughed and made a face like he'd consider it. In all honesty, he'd like nothing less. Rhett with his hair down was a particularly striking image and he would hate for the locks to be gone before he'd gotten more time to appreciate it. Luckily, Rhett dropped the subject and let Link have his turn bathing in the small gully below their campsite. 

When they arrived in California, they finally began practicing with the sword. Link made easy work of a tree trunk, practicing his hold. Rhett had teased that perhaps he had been wrong to have Link turn his belt around, since he seemed capable of holding a weapon in either hand. ‘Ambidextrous’ is what he called it. 

Whatever it meant, it impressed Rhett, so Link tried to work in at least one switch from hand to hand during each subsequent session. 

Although Link was hardly adept at sword fighting, he felt immensely more prepared to protect himself and others. 

He knew he’d made progress when he jokingly split a tomato in half and Rhett warned him to, “Be careful with that thing.”

Link had protested the entire time they’d traveled up to the farm and during the entire stop, so far. Link had half a mind to accuse Rhett of stopping just because he hated the vegetable so much. 

Fruit, his mind corrected. Rhett had been lecturing him ever since about the distinction. 

When Rhett had teased him to be careful, his tone was sarcastic. Link knew better and Rhett was comfortable saying so within the premise of a joke. To Link, it was one of the kindest ways to receive a compliment. He smiled, warmly.

It wasn’t long into their time there that Link realized they had no more to go off of than what Chase indicated the translation foretold. From legend, California was a massive place. 

It wasn’t until they hit the coastline that things started to get real. 

“This could take years,” Link said, seriously, watching the waves crash in front of them. There were a few beachside towns sprung up along the major shipping routes. They began their third night with a pitcher of mead at a tavern nearby and eventually settled into a small campsite along the water. “We have no idea where to start.”

Rhett grinned. “We have some idea,” he corrected. He looked back towards the massive hills behind them. 

Rhett’s theory was that the wizard would need a place big enough to hide an enormous dragon. 

“How else would everyone around these parts not have seen or heard it by now?” he wondered. If there’s caves in some of those mountains… could be there. We gotta ask around to see if anyone has an idea of which ones.” 

Rhett paused and cleared his throat. “Back when I first met Chase, he wrote to me about a story his grandmother told him, growing up, about a cave that was always on fire, inside. Up in the mountains. Some kind of natural anomaly, people said. Natural gas and brush fires, over the years, that kind of thing. He’d stayed in Harnett while traveling and heard our story. He didn’t know how to get an audience of the royal family. So, he wrote to us with his idea. My father tried to throw away the letters.” Rhett picked at the loaf of bread they’d split to eat with their dinner. “But I’d always been obsessed with my family’s legacy. Or… lack thereof.” 

He turned his gaze up to Link. Link held his eyes for a moment before he looked back out to the dunes behind him. 

“So, I wrote him back and we exchanged letters for a while before I first visited him. That’s when I’d first met Stevie. She was from Northern Carolina and recognized me immediately.” Rhett made a face at the memory of his younger self stumbling through the village they’d stopped in their first night on the run. It felt like forever ago. “She helped me keep a low profile. Which she was used to doing for different reasons, come to find out.”

Link stared back at him, purposefully keeping his mouth shut but his gaze warm. 

“After I visited a couple of times, we’d talked through all of that and we just enjoyed each other’s company. But it kept me thinking about all of this,” he said, looking up at the sky and then over at Link’s sword. “Which I’m grateful for, since I may not have gone for my Sunday stroll to try and pull it otherwise.”

“What would’a happened?” Link asked, voice small. He hated interrupting, but he was just too curious to stop himself. Rhett had this strange ability to make Link be himself more than he’d ever been around anyone before. There was no filter between what he wanted to ask and what he did ask, ever. It could never be worse than the ways he’d overstepped before, he figured. It was moments like this when Link realized and treasured that Rhett had become his close friend. Perhaps his first of the kind. “If you hadn’t had shown up?”

Rhett stared at the small bonfire they’d set-up beyond the wind drift of the dunes. “I honestly don’t know.” Rhett drank some of the canteen he’d filled at a stream earlier. “Would you have put it back in the stone, like you did?” he wondered, a crooked smile lighting up his jawline.

Link smirked at him. “Yes,” he said, confidently. It was absolutely what he would have done. He had thought, up until that morning, the entire display may well be a glorified prop. 

“So, it’s fated, then,” Rhett said, wistfully.

“How do you figure?” Link asked, wryly. 

“If I wasn’t there to show you that it was stuck, you would have put it back and never gone in again. So even if those guys tried to turn you in, the sword would be back and stuck. You’d never go back inside. It would be stuck there for both our lifetimes.” As Rhett spoke, his pace quickened as he bubbled with excitement at the realization. “Then, if I were there and you weren’t, I would’ve chased those hapless fools out with my bow. Even if I tried the sword, it wouldn’t have pulled.” Rhett looked back up at Link and shook his head in amazement. “And I could’ve come all the way out here, but without the sword, I’m not sure it would’ve done any good. This only could’ve happened if our paths crossed at the exact right time.”

Link felt drunk even though he’d hardly had more than a sip of the alcohol. What Rhett was saying was crazy. But what Rhett was saying was also true. 

“That doesn’t seem possible,” Link said, careful not to say that it wasn’t. Since, as established, it all already had.

“And yet,” Rhett argued, succinctly. His eyes glistened back at Link the way they did when they sparred, sometimes.

Link looked back out at the dark ocean, visible only thanks to the waxing gibbous up above. “If we are about to run towards death, at least we got to see this, first.”

Rhett hummed like he wanted to say, “Yeah,” in warm agreement, but didn't. Instead, he balked, pretending to be offended at the mere suggestion. “All that lead-up and you don’t think we’re due for a happy ending?”

“Do you?” Link joked back, skeptical. 

Rhett laughed. 

There was a warm, comfortable silence for a long moment afterwards. 

But Rhett refused to leave it at that. “I hope so,” he said, genuinely. Link could tell Rhett was looking at him as he said that and couldn’t stomach glancing up to meet his eyes. 

As he had several times during their journey so far, Link felt compelled to believe him.

When they arrived at city center inside Burbank, they quickly found several people who had also heard of the old legends about fires in the mountainsides. Some swore it was meant to keep people out of harm’s way during dry summers that could lead to wildfires. Others insisted it happened further south near San Diego or out on a nearby island like Catalina. 

Both of those options would take a great deal of time out of their way if it were wrong, so they opted to continue to pursue the leads that led them up into the forest behind Calabasas. The duo climbed Bell Canyon at sunrise, hoping to eliminate this as an option, if nothing else. 

To their surprise, when they reached the entrance to the caves inside, they both smelled what townspeople had described as sulfur and ash. Rhett doubled back a ways to find a safe place for Barbara and Jasper to stay, loosely knotted along a tree branch. Rhett made sure there was enough give that if they didn’t make it back out, there was a good shot they could free themselves and climb back down the mountain path for help. 

Link unsheathed the sword and took a deep breath, slowly crossing the threshold into the cave with Rhett to his right. They both shuddered as the unmistakable sound of bat wings echoed around the high cave ceilings all around them. It was only at that point that Link realized how dark the top half of the cave was even in broad daylight. Past the opening, the majority of the cave was pitch black. 

Link thought about suggesting they build a torch, but struggled to find words to speak. Something about the energy in the room felt like it was shifting and it was like someone had his throat in a vice grip. He couldn’t even manage to turn to look for Rhett.

He was also trying to work out how this could be the place they were looking for. How could this be the place where people reported having run-ins with fire? Nothing even looked flammable. If it weren’t for the acrid smell, Link wouldn’t know where they even got the idea.

As he fixated on the idea of what people might’ve seen, he thought about why a dragon would reveal itself to some and not others. 

Link thought back to something Chase had said, weeks before. He and Rhett had talked it through at length, one night, and it popped into his mind. 

Treasure.

Dragons guard jewels and treasure. 

Link looked down at his front, recollecting that he had nothing of much value on him, currently.

Except, Link considered, the sword itself. 

“Could it be that simple?” Link asked himself, steeling his nerves in order to follow through with his harebrained idea. He set the sword down on the cavern’s floor in front of him. 

In an instant, he felt a whoosh of air from up above. Link ducked, expecting the whole bat colony to fly down at once. He glanced over at Rhett. To his horror, Rhett’s face looked ashen and scared. When Link turned back forwards, he instantly knew why. 

There, cloaked half in darkness and half in light, was a dragon. It clung to the wall like it was pretending to be a bat. As Link reached back for the sword, slowly, he forced himself not to react to the moving cloud of bats above them as they swarmed to the area of the ceiling behind the dragon. Link’s hand finally reached the sword and although he picked it up, he was sure to continue showing deference to the enormous creature. He could see Rhett doing the same, by his side. 

They had planned so much about getting here and lived rough for weeks in order to accelerate the journey, only for them both to be left completely clueless about what to do in the event that they found it on their first try. It made sense, Link thought (his only thought, for the moment), that this, too, should unfold in such a similarly predestined way as so much else about their meeting had. It was surreal enough to kickstart Link into looking closer at the dragon. It wasn’t long before he noticed it was still wearing a chain. 

Upon closer inspection, the chain was broken, but attached to a huge steel collar. It was scuffed and nearly bent open, wrapped around the dragon’s neck. Link stared at it long enough that his own neck began to hurt. He could see where years of chafing had worn the scales of the dragon’s throat down until it bled. The dragon inched a few feet closer and Link could then make out claw marks near the left side that had since healed over. The dragon shifted again and Link then saw two small steel clasps that kept the collar snug. 

Link whispered in disbelief, “Buckle.”

Link made a show of further humbling himself, hopeful that the dragon would see that he meant it no harm. 

Instead, he wanted to communicate the opposite. “I can help you,” Link promised, loudly. He projected his voice, desperate that his plea might be understood. Their lives, potentially, rested on it. “BELVEDERE," he addressed the dragon, directly. "Help you,” he repeated and then motioned to his own neck. He set the sword down for a second for emphasis. “Me,” he said, pointing to himself. “Help you,” he said again. 

He could hear Rhett panting heavily off to his side. He didn’t sound thrilled with Link’s decision to disarm himself.

“Neck,” Link shouted, holding his own neck and pretending to scratch it to emphasize his meaning. “Help you,” he said once more.

Rhett appeared ready to interject and beg Link to flee, but before he could build up the courage to say so, the dragon shifted further than it had and dropped down from the ceiling to the ground at the edge of the small cliff that was raised a few feet from the floor of the cave. 

“Use sword to help,” Link swore, demonstrating on Rhett what he was planning to do. Rhett stood, frozen, not moving a muscle as Link was especially careful with the blade as it avoided Rhett’s shoulder and neck. “HELP.” Link was staring at the creature, now, watching with fear and anticipation for it to creep close enough. 

Finally, it stood near enough that Link could reach out and touch it.

Near enough that a breath of fire could end them both.

Link was exceedingly slow to raise his sword upright towards the dragon, but was sure to keep his stature such that it was clear he was using the sword as a tool and not a weapon. He got close enough that he could see where the latch would need to be flipped open to remove the collar. Link reached the sword out and started to panic when he saw how greatly his arms were shaking. Tears flooded his vision, ready to accept that he’d failed the task. He turned to beg Rhett to leave and was further horrified to see Rhett put away his sword and walk over to Link in a daze. He reached over and put his hands over Link’s and steadied his hold. Link’s shaking continued, but Rhett’s fluid movement balanced it out. Together, they pushed the sword closer to the dragon. 

Link stared at their clasped hands, feeling a part of his heart ache in a way he’d never felt before. 

Would this be considered wielding in the eyes of the universe? 

What would happen to Rhett?

Would he survive this?

Would Link?

Link felt the end of the sword catch along the latch and let out a long-held breath as he felt it give way. They did the same with the second latch and struggled. The dragon seemed to trust they were helping because it hardly reacted to them missing the latch for several attempts in a row. Eventually, they hooked that one, as well, and delighted as it popped loose. 

They cringed at the feral noise the dragon made as the collar briefly slid further down its neck. It shook once, twice, and rejoiced noisily as the steel clattered off along with the still-attached broken chain on the third attempt. The dragon made a pained sound, then another as it looked back and forth at Rhett and Link, then took off towards the entrance. Both men crouched as a swarm of bats followed suit. 

The dragon took off into the warm light and flew higher and higher into the clouds until it was no longer visible. Link’s gaze returned to their joined hands.

When he glanced back up, Rhett was staring at him, again. Rhett was also blinking way tears as Link watched him finally drop his grip. 

For a split second, they both waited for fate to guide them once again. 

Link dropped the sword the next second and quickly snatched Rhett’s hands between his, in turn. He stared up at the taller man, bracing himself for anything that could happen. 

A minute passed before anything did. Rhett caught his breath and sputtered out a laugh in disbelief. “I think it worked,” he said, startled. 

“Unless the dragon will come back to attack us.” Link said, realizing their hands were still joined between them both but making no move to separate them. “Or go back to Buies to terrorize your family?”

Rhett smiled. “No one else but you would lay your sword down like that.”

Link looked worried. “Should we send them a message by carrier pigeon? To warn them?”

“They’ll figure it out,” Rhett assured him. 

Their hands were still together. 

Link loosened his grip long enough to allow Rhett ample chance to pull his hands back if he wanted. Rhett stepped closer and kept his hands where they were.

Link felt his stomach flip the way he’d grown used to around Rhett. 

“All that training, for what?” Rhett marveled. 

Link stared back at Rhett, his eyes wild with affection. No matter how things shook out from that point forward, Link had to admit to himself that he was certainly in love with Rhett, by this point. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about that knowledge. 

“To parry me,” Rhett whispered, jokingly, to answer his own question. 

Before Link could ask what he meant, Rhett started to lean down, his mouth perilously close to Link’s. Any further and their lips would touch. Link let out a fearless breath and leaned the rest of the way. 

Their mouths crashed together in tandem and Link instantly felt Rhett reach up to lace his fingers through Link’s hair. Their kiss deepened and Link quickly lost any of the pretense that he might not want this. Whatever walls were up fell to the ground and shattered in the process. 

In fact, several others toppled in succession, as Link pulled back to gasp a breath and say so. “I love you,” he breathed against Rhett’s lips. 

Rhett rejoined their mouths in the next second, desperate to respond in the most visceral way that he could. When they pulled back again, he followed up by returning the sentiment. “I love you, too.”

“What do we do, now?” Link asked, knocking his forehead against where Rhett’s was bent forward. 

“I don’t know, this was the only thing I had planned. Wasn’t sure if we were supposed to slay it.”

“I can’t do that,” Link said, honestly. “Not after seeing it like that.”

Rhett leaned forward and kissed him again. He made a soft noise when their lips parted. “Me neither.”

Link noticed Rhett was staring at him instead of saying more, so he asked, “What?”

“I love you.”

Link breathed a warm laugh. He kissed Rhett more and then forced them both to gather themselves and exit the cave. When they stepped outside, Barbara and Jasper stood where they left them as if nothing out of the ordinary had even gone on.

The pair stopped at the beach before they planned to head back East. Although Rhett was still worried that people might try to take the sword from Link, he felt like the added information they had about finding and freeing the dragon would be enough to earn his respect. 

As they stood at the water, again, Link walked closer to Rhett and pulled him into a long hug. They kissed for a long moment before either said more. 

“I wish we could stay here,” Link admitted. “Just you and I, sunshine and sand.”

“We can,” Rhett said, unexpectedly.

Link was skeptical. “Leave your family back home with no knowledge of where you are?”

“I'd probably want to write them a letter about it. So they understood.”

Link searched his eyes and realized Rhett was, in fact, serious. “You’re serious?”

Rhett nodded for further confirmation. Link paled. “Let’s go back,” he said, earnestly.

Rhett quieted and stepped back. “Okay.”

“For a little while,” Link added, conspiratorially. 

Rhett’s eyes lit up when Link met his gaze. They kissed again. 

“Then we can move out here,” Link continued. “Start over.”

“Live happily ever after?” Rhett teased.

“If the fates allow it." Link looked down at the impetus for all of this, his sword. He pulled it lightly from the scabbard and stopped when the inscription once more caught his eye. "Better yet," he said. "Why ask permission?"

Rhett's brows creased as he watched Link pull the sword the remainder of the way from it's sheath. Link held the second finger on his left hand against the tip long enough that a small drop of blood appeared atop his fair skin. Silently, he pointed the blade in Rhett's direction. It took only a few seconds for Rhett to catch his meaning and hesitantly reach out his own finger tip, on the opposite hand, to prick. Link watched as Rhett pressed his finger down just hard enough to draw his own blood. Link touched their fingers together and forced their hands to meet and shake. Link could feel from the grip that some of the blood had smeared on their joined palms. 

"We're going to do great things together," Link swore, encroaching further into Rhett's personal space. The prince did not protest. 

Rather, Rhett leaned down and captured Link's face in his damp, stained hands. "Fait accompli," he mumbled, quite seriously.

They kissed for a long time, afterwards.

Link smiled to himself, certain that their superficial wounds had already begun to heal. 

𐕣