I could be accused of redundancy here, given that I already covered this scenario in my Spring, Fallen comic. But literary format opens up different things than a visual one, and what started as creative exercise in an effort to write something on a recent retreat turned into a more personal take on the story, valuable in its own right...and tbh, it's a scenario my readers will see visited a THIRD time when/if I get to an Eilonwy-centric rewrite of Castle of Llyr, so I hope nobody is sick of this yet. Though if you are I question why you are still reading my material. :P


I knew I really loved her

when I missed her

and she was still in my arms.

~Atticus


"It's a hard thing for Taran."

The voice is muffled behind a closed door, but with only two options to choose from, not hard to identify: Coll's voice, speaking a name that makes the owner thereof pause on his way across the cottage.

"You told him?" Dallben's voice, a curt grunt.

"Aye, just a bit ago, while we worked together in the garden. He took it well, on the surface, but I could tell it shook him."

"He'll manage." Dallben again. "And all the better for her absence. She's a distraction he can ill afford, just now. At his age he's all hot blood and little brain."

"He's a good lad," Coll murmurs, sounding defensive, "and she's no fool, whatever. There's been nothing untoward…"

"I am well aware of what is and is not going on between them," Dallben breaks in testily. "It's gone on far too long, in fact, despite whatever restraint they've managed. I ought to have sent her away sooner, when it would have been less painful for them both, but last Autumn would have been cruel, after all our losses, and the journey couldn't have been made any earlier this year, what with one thing and another. There has never been a good time, but the situation grows more urgent daily. "

Taran, standing outside the door of Dallben's chamber, feels the sinking heaviness already upon him thicken further, as though the air is made of mire, dragging all his limbs down in its dark weight. It is true then, what Coll has told him. Not that he has known Coll ever to mislead him…but he hasn't wanted to believe it. He takes a furtive step closer to the door, holding his breath.

"Are you sure it must be done?" Coll's voice again, full of regret. "She's happy here — so changed since she came. Now she's bloomed like a garden. I don't know why she can't just settle in for good and let things take their natural course. What else can you hope for her to learn from those high-born relations?"

"You know quite well what is at stake," Dallben says, "and we both know which way the wind is blowing — I don't object to it, you know, only to the timing. Their bond is auspicious, in fact. If all does come to pass as I hope, there is value in one of them having direct experience at court. And to anyone who might be watching, it looks far less suspicious to have it be…"

The voice halts in the midst of this incomprehensible speech. There is a scraping noise of furniture being dragged across the floor, and Taran jumps back as the door is flung open, revealing the stares of both his mentors. Coll, at the door, looks foreboding; Dallben, sitting at his table, irascible but not surprised.

"Listening at doors," the old man grumbles, "is the work of spies and cowards, and you are neither. If you have questions, come in and ask them directly."

Taran steps shamefaced into the doorway. "I…forgive me, Dallben," he stammers. "I should not have…only I heard my name, and…" He glances sideways at Coll, an instinctive search for sympathy, but the old farmer, having resumed his seat, only sighs.

Dallben looks at him steadily, and drums his bony fingertips on the tabletop before motioning to the bench. "Sit down, boy."

Taran lowers himself slowly next to Coll. His chest feels full of wet sand, obstructing every breath.

"It is hard for you, I know," Dallben begins, and the sand rises, choking him, pushing out a single word before it.

"Why?"

It hangs in the air, both lament and accusation. Dallben stares into space as though he can see the word itself, examine it like one of the specimens of rock and root sitting upon his dusty shelves. "I have reasons," he says finally, "some of which you would not understand, and none of which will satisfy you, under the circumstances, even if you did acknowledge their soundness." His eyes lose their faraway gaze, landing like flint upon Taran's anguished face. "For what it is worth to you now, I am sorry that it must come to this, my lad. I will miss her as well, you know, and hope for her return to us just as…well, perhaps not quite as ardently as you do, but nearly."

Taran grips the edge of the table, unable to appreciate the slightest hint of humor, and rather outraged that it should be attempted. He knows well enough that nothing can challenge a decree once Dallben has made it. Arguing is a waste of breath. But he wants nothing so much, in the moment, than to lift that table right off its feet, turn it over and watch every implement on it crash to the floor, a shattering chaos that might siphon off a little of what he feels.

Coll, a calming presence next to him, reaches out and touches his arm. "You mind that, lad? It's not forever. She can come back, after a bit of…well, whenever Dallben agrees to it." He regards the old enchanter a little dryly, as though he is, himself, dissatisfied at the vagueness of the arrangement.

Taran squirms, both within and without, confused and embarrassed that both Coll and Dallben seem to know more than he does about his own feelings — at least, more than he has yet admitted to himself, let alone anyone else. "I don't care," he bursts out defiantly. "What is it to me if she goes? It's just…for her sake. I fear for her, away from your protection. She'll go and do some foolish thing and put herself in danger."

Coll and Dallben exchange knowing glances. "That is always a possibility," Dallben admits, "one with which you have abundant experience yourself. Your noble concern is noted. Nevertheless, the princess must have her chance to make better choices. Not that I believe she'll have too many opportunities for trouble on Mona," he adds. "It is a dull court without much intrigue, as far as I know, which makes it the safest place I can send her; moreover, the connections she has to the place may help her…well, steady herself a bit."

He hesitates for a moment, gazing thoughtfully at Taran, then offers slowly, "But if it will ease your mind, you may travel there with her —assuming Coll can spare you from your work for a fortnight or so. That way,"—with a touch of sarcasm—"you may personally investigate all potential threats until you are satisfied about her safety."

Coll looks surprised, and glances from Dallben to Taran and back again, finally nodding. "Aye, it's all right. Planting will be done by then, and I can mind the rest until he returns."

Dallben folds his hands as if the matter is settled —as indeed, Taran knows, despairingly, it is. "Very well, then," the enchanter says briskly, "you shall leave together as soon as I have word that the ship has arrived in Avren harbor. It will be another few weeks at least. I shall have to inform the princess." His words and manner are matter-of-fact, but Taran, knowing him well, hears an unenthusiastic note in his voice at the prospect. "Be a good lad and go track her down. Tell her I must speak with her."

The sand rises up again, suffocating; Taran casts an agonized glance at Coll, who returns him a helpless sort of frown and a nod. Despairing of assistance from that quarter, the boy rises slowly, his hands trembling a little on the tabletop, turns, and leaves the room.

He is halfway across the yard before he even knows where he is, having walked blindly through the cottage, without any idea which direction to go. He stumbles to a halt, staring at the ground at his feet, wishing he could forget the nature of his errand. Suppose he finds her and tells her to hide? To run off into the woods, so that…

No. Mad idea. No, the thing must be done: he'll send her inside and Dallben will tell her she must leave. She is going away, to be with her kin and there is absolutely nothing he can do to keep her.

Taran grits his teeth. To keep her here. That's what he'd meant. Of course.

The illicitly-overheard phrases swim in his mind. All hot blood and little brain…what is and is not going on between them…whatever restraint they've managed. His face heats with self-conscious shame, then with anger that he should feel such. He's done nothing to be ashamed of—hasn't he deliberately put agonizing distance between them lately, just to make sure he wouldn't? It's hard enough, trying to make sense of his own bewildering reactions to Eilonwy, often embarassing in their own right, without being plagued by the mortifying awareness that his elders apparently know all about it. Now he'll feel as though their every interaction is being spied on and evaluated for indiscretion.

Not that they'll have much opportunity for either interaction or indiscretion, shortly.

Meandering past the gate into the orchard, Taran seizes a dead branch from the ground and slams it hard into a stone wall, smashing it into scattered bits and flinging down the remaining pieces, crunching them into the damp earth under his boots. What will it be like, here, without her? She's only been here two years or so…how is it that he finds it so difficult to remember how it was, before?

Various scenes of her everyday presence play though his unwilling mind. Her cheery morning greeting as she tumbles, tousle-headed, down the loft ladder, a rising she often seems to time perfectly with his own. Accompanying him to the scullery, where he spends an inordinate amount of time at his morning ablutions so that he can watch her unbraid her hair, comb it out, and braid it again, her nimble fingers weaving it into tight patterns in a spellbinding rhythm. Lately his own fingers have cramped as he clamps them into his fists, to keep from reaching out and tangling themselves into those shining coils.

If she catches him staring, she's wont to deliberately splash him with cold water from the basin as she washes her face, laughing at his protest, snapping towels at him and ordering him out of the scullery so she can start breakfast without his hanging about underfoot and getting in her way. He crosses the doorway with a grin and a lightness of step, full of the sense of the rightness of all things, of a buoyant happiness whose origins he's never thought to examine.

She moves through the little farm throughout the day, picking up various odd jobs in a predictable pattern —weeding beside him in the garden, scrubbing and hanging the washing, feeding stock, hunting eggs, gathering kindling, grinding grain. They are the mundane, ordinary tasks she'd been so clumsy and ignorant about when she'd come, now done without a second thought, and somehow in ways that have begun, inexplicably, to capture his rapt attention. One wouldn't think anyone could make sweeping the hearth, for example, a particularly attractive task, and yet just yesterday he had found his eyes following her, noting the graceful, firm strength in her hands, the curve in the back of her neck as she bent forward, the delicate twin crescents of her bare feet peeking out from beneath her skirts as he knelt…the way he could laugh at the sight of ashes smeared across her freckled nose and cheek, while also impulsively wanting to reach out and brush them away…

Taran leans against the stone wall with a low groan, unable to stem the flood of images, of strange and undefinable yearnings. Why does his own mind insist on making this more difficult? Why can't he stop? Why is she so…sooverwhelming?

A distraction he can ill afford.

Perhaps Dallben is right. Dallben is always right, of course — why does he have to be so right all the blasted time? And if Dallben is right, if it is true that Eilonwy's absence will be better for him, at least in some ways, then why is the idea of it so gut-wrenchingly unthinkable?

But he makes himself think it anyway. Imagines rising, knowing Eilonwy won't be there to greet him, pictures working in the garden without her. As often as he's remarked sarcastically upon her tendency toward constant chatter, the sudden silence smites him with its bleakness. In his mind's eye he sees the world less colorful, somehow, dim and without the sparkling contrast her ever-changing moods throw upon everything. Less interesting, his own place in it less necessary, when she won't be coming to him to talk over some new experience or perplexing problem, to find comfort in his steadiness, to listen, in her turn, to his thoughts and dreams and fears, to understand, in ways that their elders just don't.

Unable to bear imagining her absence, his mind turns inevitably once more to memories of her presence. He thinks of their afternoons spent in training, Coll teaching them both the proper use of various weapons despite Dallben's grumbling reluctance. Eilonwy is, naturally, no match for him in muscle or endurance, but she is nimble and strong and quick-witted, and their sparring sessions have ended with Taran on the ground a respectable number of times. Though this is probably the result of his never completely bringing his full effort to bear for fear of hurting her, the triumphant look and saucy remarks she pelts him with in such moments suggest she doesn't know that, and he has never cared to divulge the whole truth. Let her think what she likes! Even Coll says she's as capable as many youths tossed into a war band, and cleverer than most, and between the two of them they can survive a long time in a skirmish, if they keep each other's backs. Not that he has any expectation of seeing her in such a situation...but, as Coll says often, it's best to be prepared, whether one is a pig-keeper or a princess.

But there won't be any more of such preparations. No having her face off with him, flushed and eager and full of cheek, her eyes sparking cheerful insolence, or flashing within a determined frown when she encounters a challenge. Now he'll be training alone.

And meals! How will it be, sitting around the table without her? None of her witty or tart observations. No one making barbed remarks about table manners and then laughing self-depracatingly when she violates a rule herself. No one to exchange silent, amused glances with across the table when the conversation references a private shared joke. No chance to brush hands with her when she passes him a bowl or fills his cup. Not that he does such things...on purpose. They're accidents. Of course.

He thinks of the evenings spent in content companionship, perched on the old stone wall with Gurgi gamboling at their feet, the sunset light burnishing her hair until it shines like a torch against the lavender shadows behind her, as she sings softly into the twilight. Or inside, on cold nights when darkness falls early, sitting around the hearth, wrapped in furs and blankets and the low voices of Coll and Dallben - a cozy, comfortable peace.

It had been just such a night when he had first noticed her watching him, this winter past. Dallben had been reading aloud, from The Book of Three, a certain old legend Taran knew well enough, thanks to a rendition of it he'd heard one evening at Caer Dathyl, warbled out in a sentimental romantic ballad. Its more provocative implications had been lost on him years ago. Even on this night they'd been mild, but they were enough for Dallben to skim certain passages he apparently deemed inappropriate for his audience. Once he'd paused so long that Taran had glanced up to see the old man frowning, running his finger down the page and muttering to himself. Out of sheer habit, Taran had glanced at Eilonwy, and found her gaze already upon him.

In the darkness of the cottage the clarity of her eyes was filled by the flickering glow of firelight. He had admired the effect many times before, but this time it had seemed to him that those flames came not from the reflected hearth but from something manifested in her, something that transformed her expression in a way he had never seen. It was subtle, and the moment he locked eyes with her she had blinked and looked away with a self-conscious cough, attending with intense precision to the sewing-on of a patch to the shirt in her lap. She did not look up again.

But the damage had been done. Taran had wondered if his pounding heart had been audible across the room, and if the heat that flushed through him was detectable by anyone else. Suddenly every word Dallben read…or didn't read…screamed a significance that made him want to draw the blanket over his head and disappear. Or perhaps throw it off entirely, leap up, catch Eilonwy in his arms and twirl her around the room in a burst of euphoria. He had gulped as the contradictory impulses tussled with one another like wolves within him. Finally he had thrown the blanket off and risen, not to dance about the room but to stumble out into the frigid night, leaving everyone to assume he had sudden need of the privy. In actuality he had simply circled the cottage in a daze until the cold had driven him back inside.

It had not been the last time he had caught her fastening that burning stare upon him. He had caught her at it repeatedly since then, and it's had the same effect upon him every time. He has found that he rather enjoys it. It helps that she usually finds some excuse to flounce away after being discovered at it, her face scarlet, as though even she is confused and not quite aware of her own actions. Somehow her consternation reassures him. He might not know quite what to do with these strange new occurrences, but at least she doesn't seem to have any expectations of him —perhaps has no notion at all of the effect she has upon him. The idea is alternately comforting and frustrating.

But now?—he remembers his errand with dread, harsh reality yanking his mind from the strange fascination of recent events. There will be no more such moments. Distractions. It pains him, to hear such a dismissive word applied to emotions and sensations that feel so momentous. Eilonwy is more than a distraction; she is…is…

His thoughts fail him, afraid to say what she is, or what she could be, perhaps for fear of being wrong.

At that moment he is truly distracted by a shower of white apple petals falling like snow before his face — more than should be blown down at once by the gentleness of the breeze. Taran looks up, into the white-cloaked glory of the old apple tree he stands beneath, and beholds the subject of his thoughts, high above him in its topmost branches. To his anxious eye, she is in the midst of an attempt to remove herself permanently from not only Caer Dallben but the entire mortal realm, for she stands upon a slim branch that bends ominously beneath her weight.

His breath catches, hung upon that precarious curve beneath her feet, then gathers itself in a shout. "Eilonwy!"

No answer, except that a bare foot sliding along the branch suddenly goes still. "Eilonwy!" he shouts again, in desperation, "come down! You're far too high!"

Her voice drifts down between the apple petals, as sweet and tart as the fruit heralded there. "Don't be silly. You know I do this every year."

"You get heavier every year!" he retorts, without thinking.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she demands huffily, and he bites his lip, berating himself for a fool. If he makes her angry she'll go even higher just to spite him.

"I just mean you've grown!" he protests, "and the branches up there are thin!"

"You sound like a wet rooster." Her taunting voice floats down. "Fussing like that. You could join me up here, you know."

The branch is bending, bending like a drawn bow, and he dances beneath her frantically, his heart in his throat. "Eilonwy, would you please just—,"

And then…oh, then a loud crack seems to split his soul, like a log riven by the iron head of an axe. Taran hears her shriek, sees the sudden jerk of movement and cries aloud as she falls. Faster than sight, faster than thought, he throws himself into her path, instinctively turning his face up, twisting himself so that that the force of her impact slams against his chest. The crash flings him backwards into dizzying darkness.

He comes to himself lying on his back, staring up into a blur of light. Everything hurts. He tries to take a breath, finds it almost impossible, and in a sudden panic gasps hard. His aching ribs force themselves open against a heavy resistance, but they do fill, slowly and with effort.

His arms move, an instinctive attempt to rid himself of this strange weight. They encounter a warm and solid form draped limp across his upper body, pinning him down from hip to shoulder. He pushes at it weakly, but it doesn't move. Why is he lying down? What had—

The form beneath his hands shifts slightly, expands like something breathing. He blinks his eyes to make sense of the pale blur before them, and tries to raise his head to look around. Softness slides across his face, and the blur moves, light filtering through something glittering gold…

He inhales again, and his nose fills with a scent he knows quite well, though never from such close quarters: Eilonwy, her hair, her clothes, her indefinable essence, all mixed with apple blossom and crushed grass. His heartbeat races in sudden realization. She had fallen, just as he feared! And he caught her — or tried to, and now…now she lies over his heart, weighing him into the grass, and the soft mass over his face is her hair. She might be hurt, or knocked unconscious, and he is too stunned and weak to move.

But she is breathing, and in his relief he lets his hands rest boldly at her back, pressed in the hollow between her shoulder blades. At the very least he had been there, to keep her from crashing to the merciless ground. Thank goodness he had been sent to find her! And yet the irony of it galls him.

Her ribs move again and he hears her gasp, feels her limp frame slowly tense as she trickles toward lucidity. He is sharply, breathtakingly conscious of how his hands rise and fall as her ribs expand, concurrent with the press and release of her body against his battered chest as she breathes. Neither his anxiousness for her well-being, nor his physical discomfort can quite blot out a certain sense of bliss, and he swallows hard, fighting down a wave of guilty pleasure.

"Taran?" her voice wavers from beneath his left ear. "Are…are you all right?"

He considers this, and answers honestly, with a groan, "I'm not sure yet."

Another moment of her cradled beneath his chin, and then her whole body tenses and she scrambles off, pushing until she is holding herself up on trembling arms. His hands fall away reluctantly, but he grips her wrist to help steady her. She still pins him down, his right hip pressed to the ground from the weight of her torso, a thing he finds profoundly diverting even in the midst of his aching anxiety, but at least he can breathe easier. Her weight shifts as she moves her arm, her hair slides from his face, and there she is, blinking at him from a few inches away.

Eilonwy looks as shocked as he feels, dizzy and disbelieving, her eyes wide. The sunlight, glowing behind her head through the apple boughs, kindles the edges of her hair into a golden crown. Torn petals nestle in its tangled waves, caught like gems in a fine lady's hair net. Her silver pendant dangles above his chin. Silver and gold, he thinks, dazedly. She's silver and gold. Not distraction. Treasure.

"…you?" he whispers, since she has made no further move; perhaps she really is hurt worse than he fears. The tremor in her arm increases and he grasps it harder. She looks at his hand as though she is not sure what it is.

"I…" she stammers. "I…I'm…"

"You scared me," he says quietly.

It isn't what he'd usually say. Even now he feels the urge to let the fear inside him stoke itself into anger, to scold her roundly for her stubborn idiocy and her disregard for the feelings of all who desire her safety. But the angry words do not come, for before them stalks the stark grief of imminent loss, and it will not let them pass his lips.

Eilonwy looks momentarily more confused. Her face is turning rosier by the second, her eyes glittering with that fire he seems to surprise out of her in moments where close proximity is unavoidable. She bites her lower lip, and holds his gaze with the steadiness of one who has been dared to look anywhere else.

"If you say you told me so," she murmurs, "I will never speak to you again."

Something in the clear challenge of it makes his gut churn; she is baiting him; why? Why, when he has just saved her? Can't you see, he thinks, in wondering anguish, who I am?

Who is he? An open book, at this moment, its story as accessible to her as it is to him, if only either of them knew how to read it.

"I wasn't," he answers simply, and sees the glint in her eye soften a little. "But I do wish you'd be more c—"

Her hand covers his mouth before he can finish, that rebel gleam back in her gaze, and her mouth twitches up at one corner in a tiny wry smile. She leans toward him, strands of her hair dangling about his face, the smell of her surrounding him…or is that apple blossom? Does it matter?

"You just can't help it, can you?" she purrs, sounding oddly triumphant. "It's like an itch you've got to scratch."

She is close, close, close…close enough for him to notice the creamy smoothness of her skin and guess at how it would feel under his fingertips, close enough for her breath to flutter over his face and stir his hair. Close enough and yet… so immeasurably far away, holding him off with words like armor, a silencing hand that will not let him say what he wants to say. Will she ever let him…?

He sighs, and gives up any notion of speaking, instead devouring the vision before him with his eyes. If only he can hold her in his mind, just like this, perhaps he can bear it when she is gone away.

A cluster of leaves and an apple bud is tangled in one long ribbon of hair near her temple. On impulse he reaches up and grasps the sprig, pulled it carefully down the length of the strand, untangles it until it slides free. Her eyes follow the movement, stare at the bud in his fingertips, and her face changes; the defiance drains away, leaving her wide-eyed again, wry smile fading as her lips part in a heavy breath. She looks, all of a sudden, as vulnerable as he feels, as soft and fragile as the fallen flowers scattered around them, as the unfulfilled promise of sweetness, still clasped in his hand.

Taran stares, transfixed and shattered by the truth. She is unspeakably lovely, and his heart is as captive to her as that flower bud had been tangled in her hair. Only he has no desire to be pulled free.

How has he not known it all this time? When had it begun? In early spring, when he had become achingly aware of how she'd grown to a young woman in both body and mind? Last winter, in that swift exchange of heated firelight glances? The autumn before, when she'd clasped his hands, forced him to look her in the face, and assured him that he was worthy, with or without a magic brooch? Or perhaps the moment those crystalline eyes had peered through the rusty bars of a prison grate and into his soul? Had it been happening gradually, all along?

And why has he refused to admit it until now—now that she will be lost to him? For lose her he will, and he has been sent …sent to tell her so, when he has so much else to tell her instead!

That wet sand is settling once more in his chest, a burden much heavier than the continued press of her body upon him, but their combined weight is too much, and his heart thuds with the effort of every inhale. He does not want to move, but his head is beginning to swim. In another moment…

"I can't breathe," he pleads, but it's muffled into her hand, unintelligible. She blinks in surprise, and sets his mouth free.

"What was that?"

He repeats it earnestly, and she gasps and pushes away from him, sitting back, breaking the spell that still holds him down. Taran picks himself up, painfully aware of every bit of him that will be bruised and sore tomorrow, yet nothing hurts as much as the aching wound at his heart, the terrible injury of self-knowledge gained too late.

He rises to his feet and extends his hand to her. Eilonwy takes it after a moment's hesitation; he helps her up, and then finds he is unable to move, unable to let go of her. He stares at their clasped hands, feeling that to release her will only be the first severing in a series of bonds, as one thread after another is cut.

You mind that, lad? It's not forever. But it might be years…interminable years without her, alone here. And how can anyone know what might happen? Suppose she decides she wants to stay with her kinsmen and never comes back? Suppose…

"Is there something else?" she asks, breaking the long silence, startling him; Taran gulps, and forces his hand open, releasing her. She looks at him, her eyes wide with emotions he cannot identify, but still with that fierce flame sparking within them.

There is so much else. Where even to begin? How to tell her what he had not even known himself until this moment? What words are there, that can express a whole world's worth of yearning? The sand in his chest seems to loom into his mouth. His tongue feels thick; his mind slow and stupid. He could blurt out a babbling flood of utter rubbish that would not begin to tell her what he feels…or he could tell her…

"Dallben wants to see you," he says, forcing it past the choking in his chest.

Eilonwy stares at him, and that burning light in her eyes slowly dies. He cannot bear to see it, and looks away, eyes and throat hot with suppressed grief.

"Oh," she says, after a long silence. Her voice is flat, and he senses her turn away from him. "Is that all."

And she leaves him, standing alone beneath the tree, filled up with more than he could tell her in days, in weeks, in whatever years lie ahead in which he'll be able to tell her nothing at all…

He looks down, at where he has unconsciously clutched that stray, broken apple bud to his heart.

"No," he whispers, to no one.