Author's Note: This is Gower's perspective on when Lalasa arrived at the Royal Palace.

Feedback: This was harder than I imagined that it would be too write, so reviews are even more welcome than usual.

Disclaimer: Of course lionesseyes13 is the awesome penname of Tamora Pierce. If you believed that, please enroll in Sarcasm 101 at the next available opportunity.

Home

It was several bells after sunset, and Gower had just returned from supper with the other palace servants. Aware that he would have to awaken before dawn as always in order to perform his serving duties, he was already preparing for bed when someone rapped on the door to his bedchamber.

The knock was so gentle at first that he thought he had just imagined it. However, when another tap came, he knew that he had not. Wondering grumpily who was bothering him at this hour, Gower finished throwing on his nightshirt and scowled as he opened his door.

When he registered the short, plump, and pretty young woman standing there, looking even smaller because of the manner in which she crumbled in on herself like a flower struggling to survive in a drought, his glower vanished. The person who had knocked on his door was none other than his niece, Lalasa, and he could see that in the flickering light provided by the candles in the hallway and in his bedroom. Lalasa was a timid, sweet creature who tiptoed about like a perpetually startled doe, and Gower could never bring himself to be as gloomy and as distant with her as he was with other people.

Part of it was because it was hard to be gloomy around someone who had suffered more than you had. The other part of it was that Lalasa's whole attitude seemed to announce to anyone with even half a good eye that she feared everyone else, and that she had decided that her only way to deal with others was to curl up in a ball in a corner, so that everybody could see how helpless she was and either take pity on her or determine that she wasn't worth attacking at all because she was so inconsequential.

While Gower knew that there were some brutes like Lalasa's father and brother who would take pleasure in beating on someone who never attempted to defend herself by word or deed, Gower wasn't among them. He saw no point in tormenting someone who had already been broken by life, so when he saw Lalasa quivering before him, he tried to smile a welcome. Unfortunately, he found that his lips were unused to expressing joy. Worse still, Lalasa had already glimpsed his scowl.

"I—I hope that I haven't come at a bad time, Uncle," she stammered, wringing her hands.

"You could never come at an inconvenient time, Lalasa," he reassured her, wishing that he could wrap his arms around her shoulders and comfort her. He knew that he couldn't do that, though, because Lalasa was skittish about any men touching her after her father and brother had beaten her, and her brother had raped her. The men in Lalasa's life hadn't just ruined her for the world, they had ruined her for men, and Gower could never forgive them for either of those crimes. "You are my niece, and you are always welcome wherever I make my home."

Ignoring his soothing words, Lalasa continued anxiously, "I wouldn't have bothered you, but I had nowhere else to go."

"You could never bother me," Gower answered. "Many things and people in life annoy me, but you have never been among them. Besides, family exists to be the people you look to when everyone else has turned their back on you. Family is meant to be the group that will let you in when everybody else has locked you out. Now, tell me how you came to be here. Did you run away?"

As he posed this question, he motioned for her to come inside his room, close the door after her, and sit on his bed.

"No," she whispered, doing as he requested, the tears welling in her eyes. As soon as she established as much, Gower thought he was an idiot to think that she had. After all, Lalasa would never have the nerve to defy her parents in such a manner. Yet, if she hadn't run away, how in the name of Mithros had she arrived here tonight?

"A week ago now, raiders from the Carthaki Islands attacked our village," she explained, the tears that had formed in her eyes now flowing down her cheeks in salty rivulets. "They burned all our houses, barns, crops, and everything. They killed or enslaved everyone. I only escaped because I happened to be washing clothes in the stream when they struck, and I hid. I remained in hiding until I was sure that they were gone, and then I made my way here. It—it wasn't easy. Many men—scared—me on the way, and it was a relief to get here at last. I don't think that I shall ever travel again...It's much too terrifying…"

Shuddering, she broke off for a moment, and then she added softly, "I was relieved when I finally got here and found a friendly-looking maid to direct me to your room. I figured that I would come here, because I thought that you might take me in for a time, since you had always been kind to me in the past, Uncle."

"I shall take you in for as long as you need," Gower promised. "I would be happy to have you around, in fact."

Many who imagined that they knew him probably judged it impossible for him to be happy, but that simply wasn't true. He was happy when he had cause to be. The problem was that most of the time he lacked a reason. Indeed, for the most part, he found that life offered him numerous opportunities to be upset, because his existence hadn't exactly been a bundle of delights by any stretch of the imagination. When he had first come to work here, he had watched as the Black Death ravaged Corus and the Royal Palace, killing dozens of servants that he had dined and chatted with in some of the slowest and agonizing ways possible.

Later on, when he was first assigned to the pages' wing, he had become familiar with many of the lads only to see many of them killed or maimed in the Immortals War. Now that the Immortals War was over, he still found that his heart was torn asunder daily when he reflected that the pages he witnessed roughhousing, laughing, and studying together would be expected to fight and die for their country in real battlefields all too soon.

No matter how much distance he strove to cultivate between himself and the pages, he still developed attachments to them. He wanted all of them, even the bullies, to survive until they became senile, and yet he knew at the same time that many of them wouldn't. Life was brutal and short as a rule, and attachments only ever complicated things. Yet, even knowing that, he formed them, especially with pages like Keladry of Mindelan, the girl who defied tradition and bullies, but made a point of treating servants with respect and feeding the birds in the courtyard below her quarters. Still, he didn't think that fault was with him, but rather with a world that forced coldness and hardness on people, and, besides, he realized on some level that without any connections to others, he would be even more miserable than he was now.

However, for all of his typical dour thoughts, Gower was capable of feeling happiness, as he was now that Lalasa was here with him, and she was freed from the clutches of her abusive immediate family. In the rear of his mind, he recognized that he should be grieving for his brother, his sister-in-law, and his nephew, but he didn't feel much guilt over the fact that he wasn't.

After all, they had always mocked him for being enamored of the northern idea that women deserved to be treated like people or at least better than dogs, and he reckoned that people had to do something in their lives to earn grief if they expected others to shed tears for them. At least the pages Gower cried for in his heart where nobody could ever see or know of his tears deserved to be mourned. Even the bullies among them were really little more than hot-tempered boys undergoing the awkward transformation into manhood and vying for attention from a training master so severe that he made Gower look like a court jester.

He was shaken out of his musings when Lalasa murmured, "I will be a help to you, Uncle. I'll work in the palace laundries or something, and give the money to you to pay for my upkeep."

"Work in the palace laundries, but don't pay me any money," Gower said. "Save the money for yourself."

"Father would have my hide for living on your charity," Lalasa gasped, her eyes widening.

"You won't be living off my charity if you get a job at the palace." Gower dismissed this. "The palace will provide you with clothing, food, and a room with the other female servants. I'll just be protecting you from harm."

"It's still more than I deserve." Lalasa's voice trembled.

"Everyone deserves to be protected from harm. Nobody should have to go through life in constant fear." Gower shook his head. "If I could, I would protect everyone from harm, but I can't. I can protect you, though, and I will."

"I—I know that I should be sorry that my parents and brother are dead, and I am, but I—I am happy to be here with you, Uncle Gower," she choked out, her eyes moist.

"Not as happy as I am to have you here." As the words left his lips, Gower knew that they were true. Although he had never gotten around to marrying, he had always longed for a wife and children. Now, Lalasa could be a daughter to him and he the father she should have had. Both of them could have a real family at last.

Indeed, with Lalasa here, the Royal Palace was already starting to feel more like home than it ever had before, and now that she had entered his life he suddenly realized how alone he had been in a castle packed with beings. It was then that he knew for sure that while attachments could hurt more than any physical wound, they could also heal just about any pain, for the slices in his heart that resulted from being isolated from most of his family for the past few decades had been mended in one evening with his niece.