Written for darkaccalia520's Disney Song challenge. Inspired by the song "A World Without Fences" from Disney's Lady and the Tramp 2.
Fandom Blind Notes: Thiel is pronounce TEE-uhl.
Disclaimer: A Tale of Two Castles is the property of Gail Carson Levine. No copyright infringement is intended.
Thiel stood in the doorway of the mill house, waiting for someone to notice him and tell him to close the door. The old man wouldn't have allowed the door to stand open even on a June day when the weather was fine and he was healthy.
Goodwife Aimee turned her head as a bit of October breeze gusted in. "Thiel, dear!" she exclaimed. "Come in, dear, and close the door, that's a dear."
Thiel turned his face away to hide his scowl as he closed the door. He could hear his older brothers sniggering and their wives tittering behind his back at the goodwife's "dears." Thiel had most of the women in Two Castles eating out of his hand, including the doctor's widow, and decidedly excluding his brothers' wives. As for the men of Two Castles, they mostly hated him.
Thiel joined the others at his father's couch, taking care not to wipe his dusty bare feet on the mat. Sickening, how this house had always been so much about cleanliness. A lot of good it had done his father. The old man lay shivering on the couch, his fat face flushed with fever. Goodwife Aimee knelt by the couch, sponging his forehead, while Cesar and Florian and their wives stood around with long faces. Not a one of them cared. Nor did Thiel. Cesar and Florian had already had the will out, so they all knew that everything had gone to the two elder sons, leaving Thiel nothing. Served him right for being a thief, Florian's wife had said.
So now they were just waiting, his older brothers to get their inheritance and Thiel to leave. Far from here, that was where he wanted to be. Loose and running, without his father's leash tugging at him, without the crushing affections of his admirers. He hadn't decided yet where he was going. Somewhere other than Two Castles, that was what mattered.
The old man groaned and shifted on the couch, and the wives "Ooh"-ed in fake concern. Thiel looked down at him in disgust. Except for his shivering, the old man looked just as he always did—fat and red-faced, sprawled on a couch. Cesar, Florian, and Thiel had done most of the mill work in the last few years. Well, Cesar and Florian, if he was to be truthful. But Thiel had spent his time out of doors, exploring, sampling life, and, yes, thieving. His life had been an adventure. His father's had been slept away on a sofa.
I'll never live that way, Thiel thought. I'd die first.
And his father was going to die now. But what did it matter? He hadn't really lived. Thiel was still living, though. And he didn't have time to sit around and watch an already-dead man die.
Thiel spun on his heel and left the mill house, amid the fluttering of the women. He did not bother to close the door.