She paused in the act of tugging off his boot. Seren knew she would have to tell him. Yet, she found it difficult to organize her thoughts well enough to even start. No, that wasn't strictly true. She wasn't used to explaining herself to anyone. She didn't like it, but what choice did she have. No more lies, it was time for the truth.
"I am Princess Seren of Vano." She uttered quietly, managing to pry his boot off. The ankle was swelling and already starting to bruise. "Can you move your ankle?"
She glanced up and saw his eyes burning into hers. She was taken aback by their colour. Even in the low candlelight, she could see their colour and their sharpness. Blue, dark blue like the lakes in winter before the snow.
"Can I believe you?" his tone although soft, showed his tightly reigned anger.
"Yes, that much about me is true." She said turning back to his leg. She wanted to do what she could before it got any worse. "Let me take care of your leg and then I'll tell you everything."
He contemplated her for a while before nodding his head tiredly. She went to work checking his leg. It wasn't broken by any means, small mercies. If she had to hazard a guess, she would say it was a very bad sprain. A doctor would probably know how to best treat it, but her medical knowledge and books were all they had to go on right now.
Thus, she picked up the vegetable she'd brought from her kitchen, the cabbage. She picked it up and began crushing the leaves. She would make them into a compress to help reduce the swelling, and then she would wrap his ankle and prop him up. Part of her wanted to point out that it was unnecessary to go so far for him, but she felt guilty about hurting him. She could blame him for coming back when she didn't expect it, but she knew the blame was on her shoulders.
He didn't say a word as she put the leaves on his ankles, wincing only when she began to put the bandages around his ankle. She placed a cushion under his ankle and turned to face him.
"There." She said, "That should at least help, a bit. How does it feel?"
"Sore." He answered wryly. "Seren, please just explain what's going on. What were you doing outside?"
She sighed deeply and shivered as she remembered her damp clothes. She moved to the fireplace, checked on the wood, and lit a fire for them. The fire changed the atmosphere instantly. She could almost imagine she was about to have a chat with a long lost friend.
"Lucian, I am a princess," she began in a whisper. Her eyebrows tugged down. Seren wasn't a childish miss. She would answer him clearly, she decided, annoyed with her previous tone.
"And I do live here, but the rest of it... it's all a lie." She continued in a firmer tone. A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Ian sat in the corner, watching Lucian with a wary gaze. Ian stood and waddled to her side.
"The curse?" Lucian queried in a low voice, "the witch? Ioin the Dragon? All of that was a lie?"
"Yes." She replied and then continued, her conscious egging her on, "Well, except for the Ioin."
He glanced sharply at her, "What? The dragon is real."
"Sort of..." she placed her hand around her arm above her elbow. She rubbed her upper arm with her thumb, "You've actually already met him and his name isn't Ioin."
"What?" he repeated, his jaw-dropping, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. "I think I would remember meeting a dragon."
"Well," she drew it out, "Ian's not actually a dragon."
"Ian? His name is Ian?"
She nodded once.
"Let me get this straight," he closed his eyes, "Ioin the Dragon of Gywim is not actually a dragon and is actually named Ian?"
"You don't have to say it like that." She grumbled and received a look of rebuke.
"What, then," he continued, "Is Ian exactly?"
She looked down and Lucian followed her gaze.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," he spluttered and looked from the duck to Seren to the duck again and then back to Seren. "No, no, no, no, you've got to be kidding me!"
She worried her lip but said nothing.
"Are you seriously trying to tell me that the powerful and mighty dragon that everyone fears is actually a duck?"
"Quack!" the duck ruffled. Their eyes meet and recognition shot through Lucian like an arrow.
"You!"
"Quack!"
"Well, actually.... yes," Seren answered his question.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face. This couldn't be real. It was almost too much.
"That's it!" he shouted suddenly, surprising Seren.
"What?"
"I hit my head when we fell and this is all some feverish dream." He finished with a confident smile.
"No... I'm afraid you didn't." She sighed and sat down next to him.
He closed his eyes and took some deep restorative breaths. So he wasn't going crazy. Good. He hadn't hit his head and got a concussion. Also good. However, he still had questions. For instance, why? That seemed to be the most pertinent one.
"Seren?" He started slowly, keeping control over his voice, "why the lies?"
She stared intently at him, her head was in chaos. How could she explain it to him? She rubbed her temples slowly, more to try and focus than to get rid of the headache that simmered behind her eyes. She sat back and primly folded her hands in her lap. She smiled at herself, seems she couldn't escape all her princess training.
"My name is Seren, Princess of Vano, daughter of King Tate and Queen Aileen of Vano," She looked into his eyes, she refused to be a coward, "but I'm not, as people believed, cursed."
He made no response. He regarded her with interest.
She cleared her throat and continued, "I started the curse, myself."
She started walking. The easiest way for her to get through telling him, she decided, was to act as though she was talking to herself.
"You see," She said, "I've never been what a princess should be. I'm too loud, too distracting, and too quick to comment, just too much... according to my nursemaids and teachers. I liked to play the knight of the castle and hated embroidery. I spoke my mind, to everyone, adults included. I'll admit it, I was a bit of a brat who thought she knew better than everyone." She gave a small smile and shook her head.
"I just wasn't princess material. I didn't mind people thinking I wasn't behaving appropriately, I was happy to do as I wanted. Be as I wanted to be."
Her fingers found a single, white thread from the cuff of her shirt to idly play with. She hadn't realised that behaving and acting the proper way was more important to her family then being herself. After all, she was a princess, what right did she have to her own life?
"When I was sixteen..." she went on, "I was late to dinner so I thought I would cut through the hall and past my parents' chambers to save time. I had stopped to catch my breath. I could hear them through a crack in the door."
She glanced over her shoulder at Lucian, "It's true what they say, you know, about eavesdroppers..."
It had been ten years so the bitterness and hurt of the situation no longer hit her, but with some regret, she recalled those memories. It was unlikely she would ever forget what she'd heard. Even now, she could hear them with shocking clarity.
"She needs more time!" Mother stated.
"She's already thirteen, Aileen!"Her father reminded his wife gruffly. "She'll do fine."
"And when the prince finds out what she's like?" Aileen worried.
Seren frowned, what were they talking about with such passion? Her parents were never this emotional. She couldn't remember a single time in her life that either of them had shown this level of emotions.
"What does it matter?" Seren could picture her father dismissing her mother with an irritated wave of his hand. "It's for the best, Aileen."
"Seren's not ready!"
Her... They were talking about her! Seren pressed closer to the door; curiosity overriding her many princess lectures and lessons.
"It's too late! His Highness, Taran has already made his decision." His voice was cold, "The wedding will be set for next week. Once it's done, she'll be their problem and we'll have a connection to the Hegian Kingdom."
"Taran?! You cannot be serious! She will embarrass us!" Her mom's words couldn't have stung more had she slapped her. "She is not anywhere close to being a princess! Do you want her to turn us and our name into a punch line?"
"Enough!" He growled, "She will be married to the prince by next week!"
Seren had heard enough, she stumbled away as if on drunken legs.
"...it wasn't too soon after that I came up with a plan." She smiled gently. She was proud of herself, regardless of how wrong it may have been to lie, it had been necessary. She knew that she would never be able to be the princess that people wanted and she could never have forgiven herself for allowing others to dictate her future for her, but she couldn't simply quit been a princess. So, she, at the young age of thirteen, made a plan to save herself.
Perhaps a small part of it had been done as revenge on the parents who saw her as a means to an end. She could never be anything less than what she was and for all the world's forcing, she could never fit into their molds. So she made her own mold in the world.
"I thought and thought until my head ached and finally it came to me," she continued, "The Tower of Nearness. My parents had once taken me along with them to visit an ally who was somewhat obsessed with the tower. We'd had a very long discussion about it, how it was built and enchanted by a wizard and how it was a place of solitude. I decided that the tower was where I could be me without worrying about people trying to change me... so for the next several days I researched and prepared myself. Before I knew it, I ran out of time. It was the night before the Hegian envoy was due to arrive. I had to pull my plan off then, no later.
It was surprisingly simple to fool everyone. I dressed in robes and appeared as the witch to my parents. I claimed that I placed a terrible curse on their daughter and that if they wished to save their kingdom, they must send their daughter to the Tower of Nearness."
She broke the thread off her sleeve. Her lips turned up wryly.
"Obviously, they checked on me. As it turns out, even though I couldn't act like a princess, I could act like I was cursed."
She had to admit that her parents' reactions of shock and sadness touched her. She almost considered backing out, however, the thought of marrying someone who would despise her for who she was and force her to change was enough to strengthen her resolve.
"My parents may have had their faults, but they love their kingdom. They sent me to the tower.
For a while it was alright. I got used to the tower, learned how to garden and hunt, made short trips to the village, became friends with Ian, and learned some of the tower's secrets..."
She looked up at Lucian. His face was impassive, but he seemed to be taking it all rather well. He hadn't interrupted her either, which was a relief.
"A few years passed and that's when people who thought they could rescue me and break the curse started appearing. I tried spreading rumors of Ioin to try and dissuade them, but that only encouraged them more! I didn't want or need rescuing, so I would try and wait them out first, as I did with you. Some, however, were more stubborn than most and so I gave them tasks...
You were the first to ever do all of the tasks I could think of. Most people would have given up after the first duck attack." She glanced at him, "and that leads us to here and now."
She waited for him to speak or to say anything. Subconsciously she stiffened her shoulders, ready for his wrath. Her teeth ground together in anxious anticipation.
"Did you ever consider talking to your parents?" he asked, surprising her.
"What?"
"Why didn't you try explaining the situation to them?"
"No, they would have put it down to girlish fears and simply told me that it was my duty." She sighed
"You must really hate being told what to do." He eventually said. Seren let out her breath in a quick, relieved puff.
"I'm afraid so." She smiled softly, "I am sorry you got hurt, I never intended for that to happen."
He nodded slowly, "It's alright. I believe you. Your eyes are too honest."
She blushed at the sudden and unexpected comment. She hoped he meant it as a compliment. She decided to take it as one in any case. Lucian seemed, in her opinion at least, to be the type of man to be honest with his compliments.
"Seren, haven't your pa-" he didn't get to finish, a loud gurgle emanated from his stomach. He hung his head in red-cheeked embarrassment while Seren laughed gently.
"How about I make us some stew and we then we can finish our discussion?" her eyes sparkled with mirth.
Lucian nodded silently. Seren smiled and left for the kitchen. The tension melted from her shoulders. Maybe the situation wouldn't turn out as badly as she had first thought...