To Make a Kinder Children's Tale

21: Title's Source

Eventually Althalos and Esme were left with time to waste. At first they held to silence, both going over the day's events-him sitting, and her pacing. It bothered the Aelif more-he was the first to speak up. "Do you really see our time together as a prison or death?"

She shook her head. "I was speaking more on potential as leverage against your cousin's way of thinking-that man is forceful; I could use the entrenchment. I honestly see it as awkward with the potential of being a so awful. It depends on what we make of this bond, and you've been damned disinterested in anything beyond duty and lust."

It would be amusing to see his pained expression, but the Aelif looked like the subject tore at him as he objected. "What do you want? Love? This is not a child's story. There are very real consequences to who you are. One of the worst being that you will take my firstborn away from me and I've no right to stop you."

"See? It's yet another iteration of 'You're going to leave me, so why should I bother?' You're giving me no reason to try to stay. And it really feels like you're dumping all of known history on my head like it's my fault. Until this bond showed up, I assumed that someone sold me to my mother, that I was fully human. Damn it, All, you're not the only one whose world has been upended."

There must be some sort of universal code for the formation of stress headaches because Althalos looked peculiarly human as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're right. I shouldn't bring it up so often, like it's a living thing getting between us. It's not like either of us will have much choice when the time comes."

The capitulation softened the former thief's attitude a bit. "I don't think a choice would change anything for me, Althalos."

That caught his attention as he looked back up at her. "What do you mean?"

She took that as an invitation to sit beside him. "The set-up wouldn't change. You were there to capture me and my people. Without the connection, I'd still have tried to run and alert them. If successful, I'd still wind up selling stolen goods from a cart, and I'd still be best saved by at least trading my body for a little security from some guardsman out there. The guild actually wants us weak ones to sell out: settle down, even marry. It gets us out their way. Low tier selling goods is a major culling of those who have ties to The Shards without having to directly kill. And I would love to live long enough to be an old woman. The only thing I find wholly alien in our situation is that I will have the strength to leave you. I didn't have the strength to leave my guild."

"So without the bond, you would still pick me?" The Prince had to shake his head-the idea of them choosing each other of their own volition didn't settle well with him. "You're speaking love and children's tales, still. We would have no reason to marry."

"I said nothing about us marrying, Althalos." She spat that out quickly-the notion of marrying him bothered her. It wasn't how life was supposed to go, and reeked of Aelfine magic. Not that she'd say no-self preservation lay in such security, after all. "Such pairings usually work through the guardsman buying some hovel to live in with his lover, to cut down on the cost of bedding a woman. She-in turn-drops her man's name any time she's accused of selling stolen goods. It goes like that for years, until she can amass enough money to start a shop with a small apartment above the sales floor. At that point, she's no longer dealing only in stolen goods, and her man goes in and out of her life as she sees fit. Marriage is at the discretion of the guard in question. But you're not free to choose another partner like most the unmarried, as you court death to cross a guard while selling stolen goods. That, and marrying has different consequences."

"Such as?"

"Some guards marry to keep women from succeeding in business, others marry for love. But still, the man expects a house-slave in exchange for making herself legally his. Very few run their own business after that."