Prompt:
N/A
Characters:
Alan,
Sarralyn
Words:
307
No haven for this heart
He's on his way to staff practise when he hears the sounds of a small child, sobbing. He sighs. But even as first-year page, it's been drilled into his bones; a knight shall protect the weak and defenceless. So he puts down his staff and goes to search for the source of the crying.
He expects: a spoiled young lord with a scraped knee. A lass from a country fief, lost amid in chaos of the palace. A babe who dropped her sweet in the dirt.
To his surprise, he finds Sarralyn, crouched in the dust near the servant's entrance to the kitchens. Her face is grubby and scratched, her clothes strangely stretched; warped so he can see the individual threads showing in places. Like someone had tried to force not-human limbs into human clothing.
Alan has a bad feeling about this. He crouches down next to her, puts an awkward arm around her shoulder. She looks at him and says with eyes full of tears, 'Cam and Bronnen say I'm a monster. They said their mama says they mustn't play with me.'
'Oh.' He doesn't know what to say. 'What happened to your clothes?'
'I turned into a bear. Not like mama does. Only a small one! I didn't mean to, but they threw sticks at me and-' her throat catches.
Alan shifts, uncomfortably. He wishes Kalasin was here. Or Aly. She always seemed to know what to do.
After a while she says in a small voice, 'Alan?'
'Yes, Sarra.'
'Do you think I'm a monster?'
He thinks about it. 'No,' he says, then has a flash of inspiration. 'Do you want to visit the horses with me?'
'Yes,' she says, and wipes away her tears.
They walk to the stables, together. He doesn't take his arm from her shoulder.