A/N: Hey look, an update. Still not dead, though my lack of updates would indicate the opposite. Thanks for all of you who bear with my glacial updating pace, it's most appreciated, as are the views and reviesws.
The next day Cailan woke up before Wulf or Derek came to get him, probably because of the pain. He felt worse than he had when he'd first started weapons training a few years before. He knew that the only cure for the soreness was more of the same type of work, but he did not want to move. He knew he had to, though, so he stood and began doing all the stretches that Loghain had shown him. They worked surprisingly well, given that it was a different set of muscles. By the time he was done, he felt somewhat human again, so he was actually dressed by the time Wulf came for him. The guard noticed Cailan's stiffness and frowned.
"Are you injured, Your Highness?" he asked.
"No, Wulf, just sore," he said.
"Ah, yes, so are we. Wouldn't have thought that picking apples would do that to a man, but there it is. Guess farming is as hard as being in the guard, aye? We got some horse liniment from the farrier, it does a good job. Derek is using it now – should be enough for you too," Wulf said.
"I would be most grateful for it," Cailan admitted.
After Wulf brought back the liniment and helped Cailan rub it into his neck and shoulders he felt even closer to human than he had, and as such he moved much more easily when he was going down to breakfast. He was still moving carefully, although if anyone noticed, they didn't say anything. He loaded his plate and sat down, his guards flanking him with their own loaded plates. Celandine and her parents arrived in the kitchen shortly after the three of them started eating.
"Good morning, Your Highness," said Felton's daughter and son-in-law, which made Cailan look up at them and smile.
"Please…for the moment, I am simply Cailan. Sit and eat – you'll notice my guards certainly don't feel the need to stand on ceremony. You shouldn't either," he said.
"Yes, Your Hi…Cailan," said the man. Cailan was drawing a blank when trying to recall his name. Celandine had referred to him several times the previous day, but she'd called him 'Father', of course. Well, no matter. Cailan would call him 'Ser', if he had to.
"What will I be doing today?" Cailan asked after he'd finished his meal.
"Grandfather said you'd be sore today, so he's going to go easy on you and let you tour the seedling nursery," Celandine said, which made her mother shush her.
"I apologize for her, Your Highness…she seldom thinks before she speaks," said Celandine's mother, whose name Cailan also could not remember. "Think nothing of it, My Lady," he said. "She's quite right. I am sore, and looking at the nursery would be welcome," he said with a smile, which she answered with one of her own.
"I remember when Bann Teagan did this – he was practically crippled after his first day," she said.
"Didn't stop you from flirting with the man," her husband said, though he looked fondly at his wife as he said it.
"Nonsense, I wasn't flirting, I was being nice," she said.
"Don't mind us, Your Highness," Felton's daughter said, to which Cailan simply smiled in response.
The nursery was interesting. Lord Felton explained the life cycle of the trees and how the saplings were trained and pruned to facilitate harvesting later. In addition, the nursery was a place where Felton and his family experimented to come up with better trees. They bred for disease and drought resistance and for fruit size, color, and taste. Cailan could not even fathom the patience that process took, since it took at least four or five years to see what kind of fruit a tree would produce.
"One would think that man couldn't do better than the Maker," Cailan mused when Felton's son had finished explaining the process. This got him a laugh.
"Ah, but the Maker seems to favor things that do a little bit of everything. It gives the group as a whole the best chance of surviving. As farmers, it's up to us to choose the best of what the Maker has provided," the man said. Cailan could see the sense in that, he supposed.
After the nursery, Cailan was taken to the beehives. He was surprised that Lord Felton kept bees, but he supposed that it was convenient to have the bees nearby to visit the flowers, and the honey was a lucrative source of income for the farm – Felton's wife sold the honey, along with eggs and milk and butter – on Market Day. Some of the honey was brewed into mead, as well,
In the afternoon Cailan went back to the orchards, although this time his task was to take the best of the sorted fruit and pack it into crates for shipment around Thedas. Celandine ended up 'helping' with this chore as well, since apparently it was important to pack the apples 'just so', or so she told him.
He finally started packing boxes to her satisfaction, so she mostly left him to it, although she chattered to him about apples for the entire day. She was still packing faster than he was, though, which made him wonder again how it was possible that a nine-year-old was better than he was at so many aspects of the harvest. He supposed she'd probably been helping with such things since she was a toddler. Cailan tried to imagine doing this kind of work when he was her age…and failed. He wondered if all farm children began working at such an early age…and then he realized that all her siblings and cousins were doing the same, to the limit of their ability. Even the youngest ones were doing things like carrying water to the harvesters. It truly opened his eyes to what life on a farm was like – producing food was a great deal of work. Most nobles probably did not do as much work in a week as the average peasant did in a day. It certainly gave him something to think about.
After Lord Felton called a halt to work for the evening Cailan had supper with Felton's family and then prepared to leave the farmhouse for the manor house. He took his leave from the family, solemly thanking each of them for assisting him and teaching him about a working farm. He saved Celandine for last. As exasperating as she was…well, he would miss her chatter. It was also nice that she really did treat him just like anyone else. It was nice to not be a prince for a while.
"You are a little imp, you know that?" he said to her.
"My da calls me that," she said.
"I'm not surprised. Annoying as you are, I learned a lot from you, little imp," he said.
"Me too. I learned that even a prince can get sweaty and stinky," she said, which made him laugh.
"I'll just take that to mean that a prince is a man, just like any other man, and we'll go with that," Cailan said.
"Will you ever come back to Rainesfere?" she asked.
"I don't know, but if you ever come to Denerim…come to the Palace. I'll be glad to see you, little imp," Cailan said.
"Thank you, Your Highness," she said, and gave him her best formal curtsey. He returned the gesture with an equally formal bow, though he could not help but smile as he did so.
