Author's Note: My Muse keeps coming up with random ideas for oneshots, and this was one of them. I'm not positive that I got the time period one hundred percent correct in this, but from the facts I re-checked in First Test I did, which is something anyway. If you think something is off, as always point it out in a review. Thanks.

Maimed

Anders of Mindelan stared numbly at the stone walls of the healers' ward at the Royal Palace. He should have been glad, because today was the day that, if he passed the healers' inspection, he would be pronounced fit for travel, which basically meant that he could return home to lick his wounds in private and attempt to salvage something from his broken dreams. He wasn't happy, though. All he could think about was the fact that he would never again be able to fight or move like he used to. He was a cripple now, and, no matter how many times people told him that he was lucky to be alive or that he was fortunate that his leg would still move for him at all, he couldn't feel anything less than cursed.

As such, it was something of a relief when the heavy oak door to the ward swung open , temporarily dragging him out of his maudlin state. However, the newcomer wasn't likely to increase his cheer very much, since it turned out that the man who had just entered was none other than Lord Wyldon of Cavall, whose typical stiff glower had hardened even more to express his annoyance at requiring medical attention at all.

"Lord Wyldon." Anders offered his former training master a polite bow of his head as the older man sat down on the bench beside him.

"Sir Anders." Wyldon returned the nod. Then his dark eyes focused on Anders' damaged leg, and he commented in a mild tone that Anders had never heard before, "You saved the lives of three men at the cost of your leg, didn't you?"

"Essentially," Anders admitted, feeling that the action that most beings labeled as heroic had actually been nothing to brag about, since it had only been an instinctive decision. He would only have deserved praise for his behavior if he had thought through the consequences it would have for him and then made the choice to save the men at the expense of his leg, anyway. Of course, the praise might have eaten away at him less if he was confident that he would have made the same decision even if he had paused to think, but there was a nagging voice inside him that hissed that he would have let those men die if he had known that it would destroy his leg. The thought shamed him and proved to him that he wasn't the hero everyone believed him to be, and if he had more courage he would explain this to people. Instead, he allowed them to keep treating him like the noble, selfless hero that he wasn't. "My leg hasn't been removed, but it doesn't function properly and it never will. The healers want to check on me one more time before they pronounce me fit to travel home."

"It's a pity that your bravery ended so badly for you," Wyldon said, scratching the sling that bound his shoulder where the hurrocks that had attacked the royal nursery has assaulted him.

"Battle isn't fair, and what I did wasn't bravery—it was just instincts," replied Anders, surprised that he would confess this to his harsh old training master of all people. Of course, Wyldon would probably regard it as an appropriate display of humility in a knight, not as a stark declaration of guilt. Eager to change the subject, Anders went on, "Bravery was what you did, my lord, when you saved the younger princes and princess from the hurrocks."

"That was duty, not bravery." As he established as much, Wyldon's face twisted into an odd smile that only emphasized the raw, red cuts he had sustained during his confrontation with the hurrocks in the royal nursery. "Any inhabitant of this realm is duty and honor bound to defend the royal family with their lives if they have a chance. I merely did what anyone should have done in that situation."

"And I only acted as a knight is supposed to in my situation," Anders said.

"Still, the fact that anybody else should have done what we did doesn't detract from the fact that we did it, and it doesn't change the fact that we know not everyone would have done their duty in that situation," noted Wyldon fairly. Locking his eyes on Anders he asked, "What are you planning on doing now?"

"I'm going home to my wife, Vorinna, and children," Anders responded, feeling his heart lighten at the thought of his family. "While I'm there, I'll ride on patrol, keeping peace in the fief. Just because I'm not able to serve in active duty rolls anymore, that doesn't mean I have to act like a useless cripple, my lord."

"It's nice to be with family again." For a moment, Wyldon's gaze became distant, and Anders surmised that he was thinking about his own wife and daughters. "I won't be seeing any more of your brothers in training after Conal, will I?"

"Probably not," Anders agreed. "After him, the only other son is Avinar, and Avinar wants to study at the University."

"That's a shame." Wyldon shook his head. "After this war with the Immortals, we need all the knights we can get to replace the ones we lost. Fighting ability, like intelligence, lunacy, and good looks, tends to be passed along in families. It would have been good to have another Mindelan lad as a knight, but at least we have Inness and Conal, and you've got sons, haven't you?"

"Yes." Anders nodded. "The oldest, Lachren, will be ready for page training in 449."

"Good," grunted Wyldon. "We have our work cut out for us for years to come trying to make up for what we lost in the Immortals War."

After that, the two of them lapsed into silence, because they had nothing more to say to each other. It was only months later when his parents returned to Tortall with his younger siblings after their diplomatic work in the Yamani Islands had finally concluded that it occurred to Anders that neither of them had considered for a second how much a plain, dreamy-eyed girl from Mindelan could heal the country.