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The marks in the old, soft wood in the barn weren’t as high as he remembered. They were ragged, rough beneath his fingers.
He’d made them as a child, marking as he grew like Eamon did with Cailan every time the boy – his brother – came to visit. He’d felt so tall, back then, with the little dagger he’d kept tucked in his belt like he was a knight with a great big sword. They were almost as much of a secret as his parentage had been; if Eamon or the Stable Master had seen him carving into the wood posts that held up the great barn, they’d have been very cross with him. Thus, he kept them tucked around the corner where his bedroll laid, out of sight. Just like him.
He’d been so proud of how high they’d stretched, back then. But now, he had to kneel and bend low to find them, taking a knee in the dirt and knowing in the back of his mind how Eamon would tut if he found him here. His fingers traced the grooving, and his breath was light though his thoughts were heavy. The marks were not as deep in the wood as he remembered, making them with a shaking hand, marking above his own head with all the strength his thin arms could gather.
He took a deep breath, crouched there in the quiet, glancing around to make sure no one had found him. He just wanted a moment… alone.
He’d come to Redcliffe Castle to celebrate. Teagan, his sort-of uncle, was being elevated to the station of Arl of Redcliffe.
Eamon Guerrin, the man who had raised Alistair as a boy, had chosen to retire to Denerim with his wife Isolde, leaving his younger brother in charge. The people of Redcliffe seemed happy. Teagan had, of course, helped to save them during the Blight when the undead attacked the village. Eamon, on the other hand… Well, he’d been sick. It was hardly his fault. And Isolde… Isolde hadn’t known better. She’d been trying to protect her son. Wouldn’t anyone?
He pushed himself to standing with a deep breath.
He remembered Redcliffe – and its castle – so fondly. Mostly. But… somehow, he still felt uneasy in its halls, even with a crown upon his head that made Eamon smile more brightly at him than the man ever had without it. So Alistair wandered to the barn, out amidst the hay and the horses and the dogs where he used to play and sleep, searching for some shadow of the home he once loved. He turned, wandered the long path through the barn that once took much longer to travel on shorter legs. Some of the horses noted his passing, while others did not so much as lift their heads.
Out the other side, he came to stand at the edge of the pastures. He walked to the fences, laid his hands on the weather-beaten wood as he took another deep breath. He remembered running through the fields when he was young, how the tall grass used to sting his legs.
“King Alistair?”
He did his best not to wince. His head swiveled at the voice, and he found… a woman he did not recognize, though she knew him. Everyone knew him, these days.
“My! What a man you’ve grown into!”
Alistair blinked a few times as the woman approached him from around the corner of the barn by the fence. Her face was… wrinkled. She was smeared with makeup that might have flattered her in kinder lighting. Her clothes were finer than most of the villagers, and she had a fur shawl.
She seemed to know him, her voice oozing a familiar fondness. But he did not remember her, despite how he tried. She came to him smiling, and he forced a smile back.
“Do you remember when you used to beg me to make you toy soldiers?” the woman asked, and his memory lit like a fire.
Alistair felt his cheeks burn with blush. He did remember her, this woman standing before him. But he could not recall her by name, or even her face. No, what he remembered was a hand full of those long yellow skirts she wore, tugging and begging her please for just one more soldier for his collection. Even now, he loved his figurines…
“You… made me a carving of King Calenhad,” Alistair recalled. “I used to carry it with me everywhere.”
Even to the Chantry, when they’d sent him away. There he’d lost it to… he could not remember.
The woman’s face bloomed with pride and happiness, and Alistair felt his heart flutter. She patted his chest just beneath his shoulder fondly, blinking as if holding back tears.
“And now you rule all Ferelden,” she mused. “Who would have thought?”
Not him, certainly. And not her, it appeared. And definitely not the small child who had made the marks in the barn posts that lingered still in that soft wood behind him. His heart panged softly, a flickering smile lighting on his lips despite himself.
“Thank you,” he said then. “For… being so kind to me, when I was young.”
The woman tilted her head at him, as if the words he spoke were strange somehow.
“Had I known you were the Prince, I would have been kinder,” she said.
He forced a smile, an awkward laugh.
“I suppose that was the point of people not knowing.”
“Of course,” she said softly, her hands folding together.
He took a deep breath, his eyes sweeping the horizon. Maybe he would walk down to the lake, maybe take the paths he had once carved when he was a boy. Behind him, the castle loomed, and he knew that eventually he should go back. Celebrate with the others and be…
King. Like they were expecting.
He breathed out slowly, his hands sliding carefully over the wood before him.
“Well, it was very good to see you, Your Majesty,” the woman said, as if she knew he were going to walk away just by watching him think.
“And you,” Alistair returned, though he still did not know her name.
Perhaps he would ask Teagan, later. Teagan knew everyone.
“Mind that you’re back to the castle before night,” the woman said, and then looked embarrassed when Alistair looked over his shoulder at her. “I—I’m sorry, Your Majesty. You’re not a little boy anymore, I know.”
Alistair smiled.
“Good to know someone will be looking out for me,” he told her with a wink.
Better still to know someone still remembered that round-faced boy in Redcliffe with some fondness besides just him.
“Always,” she said.
He bowed his head to her, and set out to wander and remember what it was like to simply be himself there in the fields of Redcliffe.