0x03 - Getting to Know You

After that first late night talk, everything and nothing changed between her and the man calling himself Keith. It wasn't that they did anything differently, it was that there was a different sort of feel between the two of them. Having finished the extra bedding, Hunith spent her days for the most part doing the tasks that she never got done when it was just her, like mending old clothing or picking berries from the woods to make into preserves for the winter. Keith continued to take her place in the fields, where she wouldn't be needed until the harvest drew near.

The difference lay in the way that they didn't avoid each other's eyes and the ease with which they could speak to one another. Hunith was quickly finding out that Keith was not a very verbose person. It wasn't that he was shy, it was that he wasn't inclined to engage in idle chatter the way Hunith was. He answered questions and replied when spoken to, but it didn't seem to occur to him to initiate a conversation himself unless he had something specific to say. In that way, he was a very withdrawn person.

It only made her all the more embarrassed that he had been the one to break the silence between them.

Throughout the day they said little enough to one another, but when nightfall came they would talk late in the darkness that felt as though it hid more than it truthfully did. It was safer to only acknowledge dangerous truths about themselves when the door and windows were shut to block out the night air and the peeled eyes of their neighbours were shut in sleep. Only then could they drop the act of being nothing more than two people brought together by poor old cousin Marcus.

And it was at those times, as though a dam had been breached, she and the man calling himself Keith became acquainted with each other.

"How do you know Gaius?" he asked her, a couple nights after the first conversation that broke the ice between them. By then they had given up lying on opposite sides of the room, instead sitting side by side, burning a candle to see one another and talking in hushed whispers.

"He's my brother," Hunith said simply.

Keith looked surprised. "But he's so much older than you!"

"I was adopted." Hunith laughed. Indeed, the age difference was quite something; nearly a year ago Gaius had celebrated his fiftieth birthday when she had not yet celebrated her twenty-fifth. "My parents were taken by the plague when I was eight. An old physician couple had come to Ealdor to help with the outbreak, and they took me in. Antonius and Julia were their names and I lived with them for eight years. After they died - at the same time, from one of the diseases they were treating - I came back to Ealdor. They were Gaius's parents. Not that he lived with us - he'd gone off to pursue various studies before I was adopted, but came to visit every other year or so."

"When you say they came to Ealdor, I take it they lived elsewhere?"

"Elsewhere is a good word for it," Hunith mused, a reminiscent smile making its way to her face. Most of the pain of Antonius and Julia's passing had dulled in the nine years since it happened, leaving her with only a dull ache for the kind couple who had taken in an orphaned little peasant girl and treated her as though she were their own daughter. "On the census our house was in the capital, but we generally only used it as a base to rest and restock supplies in between rounds of the kingdom. I must have seen every tiny little village dotting the backwaters of Essetir during the years I lived with them. We never stayed anywhere very long, always called away by some plague or influenza in another village."

Something like understanding went through his eyes, "It must have been lonely, growing up always moving to new places with new people. Just as you make friends, you have to leave them behind."

Surprise flickered through her. After she returned to Ealdor and once the other villagers finally coaxed an abridged version of those years of her life out of her, the overall reaction had been one of envy. Her friends all at one point or another told her that they wished they had been able to travel the kingdom as she had. "You speak as if you know what its like?"

Something that might have been an attempt at a smile twisted painfully on his face, like a knot pulled too tightly, and something in his eyes closed as if shutters to the window of his soul had been drawn. "I do. I grew up moving from place to place as well."

The was the end of their conversation that night, abrupt as it was, and Hunith was left with the impression that Keith's past was not a subject to be prodded into lightly.

It was several more nights before she dared venture another question to him, and even then she stuck with what she felt would be a safe one, repeating his question back to him.

"So how did you and Gaius meet?"

He didn't speak for a minute, something that she was quickly becoming used to though she hadn't quite worked out all the idiosyncratic reasons for the delayed responses yet. In this case, though, she knew he was pondering how much to tell her. It would seem that even topics like Gaius - who she knew was alive and well - were a tricky subject where Keith was concerned.

"When the king of Camelot took up the throne," he began as if unsure he really wanted to be telling her this. Understanding of his reluctance to speak hit her with those words, and she wished she hasn't asked. "For reasons I don't want to go into, I and several representatives of my kindred and brother kindred sought an audience with him. Gaius was curious about our ways, and while we were there we often met with him to discuss academic matters."

It was an answer that begged more questions than it answered, but Hunith didn't ask. If he wanted to explain more then he would have. As it was, she steered the conversation into safer waters with, "That sounds like Gaius. Our parents were just physicians, but Gaius treasured all knowledge like diamonds. He always wanted to know the workings of everything under the sun, scientific or magical."

The relaxation of Keith's expression was palpable. "He did ask a lot of questions and was very disappointed when we didn't provide a lot of answers. But he seemed to respect that some knowledge cannot be shared with outsiders and never pushed in areas where we made it clear no answers would be forthcoming."

A thin note of amusement crept into his voice, "He was rather like you in that respect." Hunith blinked in surprise, and he went on, "You haven't even asked me what my name is."

"I guess it's something we learned from our parents. When you care for all manner of people for all manner of hurts, you need to gain an extra sense for where questions are not wanted."

Keith didn't respond right away, his expression pulling into itself in the flickering candlelight. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, but it seemed to be a weighty matter for he was silent a good long while. She waited for him to resolve whatever inner debate he was having with himself.

At length he said, rather abruptly, "My name is Balinor."

"Oh," she said, too shocked to say anything else. She had no idea what she had said to make him decide to share this. Still, her chest warmed at the unexpected gesture of trust and suddenly he felt a lot closer to her. He was now the only one of the people Gaius sent to her who she knew the name of. Somehow, she felt as though that made him more hers. "I see… may I – may I call you that, when we're alone together?"

He agreed, and though he was still shrouded in his mysterious past she felt much closer to his present self than before.

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During the day things began to slowly change. At first she didn't notice, but little things got done to make her life easier than it had ever been. The floor was always clean, even when she hadn't swept that day or the day before, dishes were washed without her having to do so, her bedroll rolled up neatly in the morning where she had left it rumpled while she went to make breakfast. Balinor never said anything about it and she never saw him doing any of it, but he was really the only explanation.

She sometimes wondered about the wisdom of using magic – which was the only way he could be doing this without her seeing – to clean in the times they were living in, but reasoned as long as he did it within their home leaving no one the wiser it did no harm. On the contrary, between him taking her place in the fields and the little pieces of housework being done mysteriously, Hunith had more free time than she ever had before.

It gave them more time in the evenings, which they filled with words even before the sun had dipped below the horizon. Evenings were steadily becoming Hunith's favourite time of day, as they learned more about each other while the sun made its descent and lay down to sleep for the night.

On an evening after Balinor had seen her caring for a colicky infant and discovered she was acting as the go-to woman for all of Ealdor's ills and injuries, he asked her,

"Were your parents the ones to teach you medicine?"

"I wouldn't say they taught me, per se. It's just that there's no way you can be raised by a couple of physicians and not pick up something of healing."

He was quiet after that, then said, "My parents were my teachers, too."

Her eyes widened. This was the first time he had mentioned anyone from his past other than Gaius. Excitement and nervousness churned within in her, and she prayed she wouldn't say anything to mess this up. "Teachers of magic?"

"They taught me everything their parents taught them," he answered and didn't answer, because she didn't know quite what he was talking about, only that he was telling her more about himself now than he had in the two weeks since they had started talking to each other. She drank in every word, savouring them even when she didn't understand. "And their parents before them. It was our way of life, and magic was a part of it, but it was so much more than that."

Was.

The past tense did not pass her by unnoticed. She debated with herself for a minute, but did not remark on it.

He continued, "We didn't truly have anywhere to call home. Not many places were welcoming to our kin, and so we were always on the move. Sometimes we had to leave quite suddenly, sometimes we were allowed to leave in our own time, but everywhere made it clear in one way or another that we were not welcome to stay."

"People fear what they don't understand," she offered, unsure if it was the right thing to say but nothing more appropriate came to mind.

"I know," he said bitterly. The bitterness was not directed at her, but it stung nonetheless. "Believe me, I know."

The next evening they only spoke about her, about various places she'd been and people she'd met while traveling with her adoptive parents, and no mention of Balinor's parents was made. On the evening afterwards, she steeled herself to ask,

"Could you show me?" When he looked at her in confusion, she expanded, "Something magical."

He smiled, looking the happiest he had since she'd met him, and whispered something to the candle. The flame rose in the air so that it was nearly a foot tall, and then shot downwards into a bulb at the base of the wick, flaring a white-blue then disappearing. The room was only dark for a moment, with a muttered word the candle relit with a normal flame.

Balinor's hand was by the candle, and he held out a flower that had not been there before to her. It was a white violet, the outer rim coloured a blue lighter than she had seen on the plant naturally. It was the same blue and white as the flame had been, and Hunith could not have stopped the smile spreading across her face if she wanted to.

Tenderly, he leaned over and tucked the flower behind her ear. His fingers brushed against the side of her face, and she felt her cheeks warm. She hoped he couldn't see it in the poorly lit room.

"It's beautiful," she mumbled. "It's a wonderful gift. Thank you."

"It suits you," he said, his eyes wide as though he was drinking in the sight of her. Her face burned as if the flame-flower had ignited a fire beneath her skin.

Before she went to bed, she pressed the flower within the pages of a heavy book Antonius had given her for her 12th birthday. When she woke up, there was another one waiting for her on the table. Balinor didn't say anything when she tucked it into her headscarf, but she thought she saw a smile ghost its way across his face before his head away from her. Every day after that, when she woke there would be a new flower waiting for her. Sometimes it was a daisy, some days it was a rose, and some days it was a flower she'd never seen before which she knew didn't grow in Essetir. But the flowers were always white with a ring of blue along the edge.

Her friends looked enviously at the flowers, and didn't understand her secretive smile when she said they were a gift from "Keith".

At the end of the day she pressed the flowers into the pages of her book, determined to keep every last one. She wished she had a skill to reciprocate the kind gestures, and she was filled with a burning desire to get to know her quietly thoughtful man better.

But Hunith was hesitant to ask personal questions of Balinor, not wanting to dig up more painful memories. After all, even her innocent question about Gaius apparently turned out to have a painful story behind it. She could never tell what was a safe topic to ask him about and what had a gaping wound hiding behind the shroud of his past.

Instead, one night after telling him a story of a backwater mountain hamlet she had been to when she was thirteen to help with a pox outbreak, she ventured to ask,

"Have you ever seen the mountains?"

"Many different mountains," he said, unaffected by the question. "Some of them hundreds of leagues apart."

His relaxed manner gave her the courage to delve deeper. "What were they like?"

"The Dartry Mountains across the Seas of Meredor are probably the most distinctive I've seen."

His eyes took on a far away look as though he was seeing them as he described, "Great pillars of rock rising out of sloping green plains, they have no peak, instead spreading out smoothly for leagues. They rise from the ground like the battlements of a castle, but only sturdy patches of green live atop their walls. Standing on the top, its like a platform meant for the gods; you feel tiny as you look out on the spread of the land from the snaking blue rivers to the lush deep green of the forests and lighter cheery green of the meadows, and at your back is nothing but the wind. Behind you the flat top of the mountain stretches for leagues, and its a feeling of such isolation to see all the land and yet not see a soul anywhere in it."

And so on as he told her of places so far away she had never heard of them. To Hunith, leaving Essetir visit Gaius in the neighbouring kingdom had been a grand adventure, but Balinor's tales made it look like a trip to the Saturday market. His tales of these places, as riveting as a bard's, became a nightly occurrence and she always listened to them eagerly. He had a sort of cadence to his deep voice that caught the imagination, so that it was easy from just his words to smell the spices of the Southrons, or feel the bite of the cold winds of Ismere.

She knew he was leaving a lot out of his tales, such as what he did while in these places, why his parents disappeared in the more recent stories, or who the mysterious "member of my kin" accompanying them (and later him alone) was, as well as the reason behind his extensive journeys. But though she wanted to she did not ask, instead waited for him to volunteer whatever personal information he was comfortable with himself. After a week her patience paid off.

They hadn't been talking about his journeys for once, rather Hunith had been telling him what it was like coming back to Ealdor after her years on the move and the difficulties she'd had readjusting to the life in the village of her birth.

"The people were really good about it all," she was saying. "They'd taken up my parents' portion of the fields years before, of course - who'd let good farmland lie untouched? - but our house was still empty and they let me claim it, even though as a woman I'm not technically supposed to inherit any land. So it's not that they weren't good to me – because they were – it's just that I was the only one who hadn't spent the last eight years living together with everyone else. I'd be sitting in a group, wondering why everyone started laughing at the words "Judith and turnips!" Eventually I heard every piece of gossip-worthy news from the eight years I missed, but it's different than being there in person."

"I know what you mean," Balinor said wryly. "I wonder sometimes if the others forget I don't already know their whole life stories. Keeping track of their names is difficult enough, and they expect me to remember how everyone is related to the fifth degree."

"Everyone knows everything about everyone else in a village this size," she chuckled. "I'm just surprised you managed to get them to stop asking questions so easily. When I first came back, everyone pestered me about every tiny detail of my life while I was away until Gaius came to see how I was coping. I swear his eyebrow is magic, there's no way raising it could have got Old Ann to leave me in peace otherwise."

Unexpectedly, Balinor frowned, "What do you mean, how you were coping?"

"With our parents' deaths. He had to leave right after the funeral – I can't remember why, there was something he needed to do back in Camelot – so we didn't get much chance to talk then. I told him I was moving back to Ealdor, and he said once he finished up his business he'd come check on how I was doing. He wasn't too pleased when he found a gossipy old crone interrogating me about them."

"You're too nice for your own good," Balinor said, looking more upset than she thought he would be by such an inconsequential little story. "You should have just told them to leave you be."

She didn't know what to say to that. It was true that she often lacked the heart to reprimand others – unless they were bothering people she cared about. When she was ten she'd given a grown man twice her size a tongue lashing that left him near tears because he'd been upsetting one of Julia's patients, a bubbly girl her age who she'd instantly made friends with. But when it was just her, especially in her younger years before she grew into independence from years of taking care of herself, it seemed better to stand down.

At length, she tried to right the conversation from the strange turn it had taken. "Well, it did no one any harm in the long term, and I'm old gossip by now. And it's all years in the past, it doesn't hurt to talk about them anymore."

"But the hurt of losing someone never truly goes away, only goes to sleep," He said softly. By way of explanation, he continued, "My parents died five years ago."

She was taken aback that he was bringing this up, even though she had been hoping he would feel comfortable enough with her to share some of his past. She was further surprised when he continued speaking, not just leaving it at the little factoid.

"Their names were Palance and Danu. They were killed at night while trying to defend a young member of our kin from angry shepherds, pierced by arrows near their chests. I was leagues away, but their dying cries reached me. Magic can be a curse as well as a gift."

The candle flickered, the glow dancing across his visage in a bath of orange and shadow. It had burned low on its wick by then, and soon it would go out. The shadows lengthened.

"I miss them but, sometimes I find myself thinking... isn't it better that they died then?" His expression was complicated and Hunith couldn't hope to name the emotion thick in his voice. "They died before the world went to hell, and all of our kind were slaughtered... sometimes I think they were lucky, to not have seen it."

There was little Hunith could say in reply to that, so she only took his hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. Neither of them moved away from each other that night, and when the sun peaked over the horizon it found them huddled together against the wall, holding hands and fast asleep leaning on each other.

After experiencing the uncomfortable cricks in their necks all day from falling asleep in that position, Hunith suggested moving their bedrolls to the same side of the room so they didn't have to sit up when they talked. Balinor agreed right away, surprising her at how quickly he did so especially given the light flush on his features when she suggested it. So they lay two feet apart from each other as they carried on their hushed late night conversations, falling asleep side-by-side. Balinor breaths beside her in the dark brought comfort now, and she had a hard time imagining that once she had been kept up merely by his presence on the other side of the room.

On a day after a child had accidentally slashed her hand when cutting vegetables for her mother, their heart-to-hearts for the first time exited the cloak of falling darkness and took place under the rising light of the sun. Hunith had just sent the little girl out, with expertly bandaged hands and reassuring words, a small wistful smile on her lips the way it always was when she saw little ones, when Balinor spoke.

"You'll make a wonderful mother."

Hunith's heart felt a dull pang, despite her frequent reassurances to herself that she had accepted her lot in life. "I'd like to think I would, if I had had the chance."

Balinor's eyebrows creased and he focused his dark eyes on her in his intense way that once, before she had become used to him, she would have been discomforted by. "You still might."

Hunith forced a little laugh. "I'm twenty-five." She said, trying to sound lighthearted. "And unwed and likely to stay that way."

Balinor took a seat at the table beside her, where she was cutting vegetables for their supper that night. His eyes bore into her like he could see her soul. "You're beautiful."

Hunith's heart skipped a beat, a vivid flush making its way across her face. Though when she had first moved back to Ealdor and before she had revealed her literacy she had attracted some looks from the young men, no one other than her parents - both natural and adoptive - had ever outright called her beautiful. "Thank you. But there are younger girls who are prettier than me," she refuted, her smile a little shaky.

"You're kinder than anyone I've met," Balinor insisted. "Any man would be happy to have you."

Hunith laughed a little, not sure how else to respond. Balinor was still staring intensely at her, and she met his eyes, unable to look away. Unbidden, her old thoughts about how there was an undercurrent hidden in his eyes that could suck her in and carry her off resurfaced, yet the thrill it sent through her wasn't the fear that it had been before. It felt like she was being swept away then, only it wasn't terror that quickened her pulse and made her unable to think. She didn't know what to name the feeling.

Then he was leaning forwards and she, as though drawn to him, was leaning forwards as well...

A knock at the door made them both jump, and they leap to their feet like startled deer. "Who is it?" Hunith called, her voice wavering as rational thought returned. What they had been about to do and why was her heart racing when she had been sitting for hours?

It was the little girl's mother, come to bring her thanks and a bowl of berries as payment. After the woman left, Hunith went back to cutting vegetables, stubbornly ignoring Balinor. She refused to meet his gaze, which she could feel.

The next few days were as silent as when Hunith and Balinor had been strangers sharing a house. Again he was constantly looking at her, this time making no attempt to pretend that he wasn't. The feel of his gaze made her heart race and sent shivers done her arms, and Hunith became unnaturally clumsy in his presence. Her cheeks were a constant flush whenever he was around, and several of her neighbours had asked if she was feeling unwell with a knowing smirk.

Things might have continued in that awkward, strained silence of avoidance, had the next Monday not come to pass the way it did.

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The day started as it always did. She and Balinor rose at the break of dawn, and ate pottage made from leftovers from the day before. He pretended to find her cooking edible, and she in turn pretended that she didn't notice he was pretending. The same as the last few days, she stubbornly refused to look at Balinor. Soon he left, without a word, and she set about her morning chores.

She was bringing the bucket of milk and basket of eggs inside when she heard the hoofsteps approaching. Hunith hurried to leave them on the table and darted out again, not the only woman emerging from her house and looking around. Riding down the path into the village was a lone figure clad in gleaming silver armour and - to Hunith's utter horror - a billowing blood red cape. The man reigned his horse in, addressing the gathered women and elders from the centre of the village.

Without dismounting, the man announced, "People of the kingdom of Essetir, we have reason to believe that a dangerous fugitive from our kingdom fled in this direction. A tall man of black hair and brown eyes, with high cheekbones and a deep voice, aged 23. He goes by the name Balinor, and escaped from us two months passed. Anyone who provides information which aids in the apprehension of this man will be richly rewarded by His Majesty Uther Pendragon, King of Camelot."

Excited murmurs broke out through the crowd of gathered women. Hunith shrunk to the back, hoping the knight could not see her face. She felt as though she might faint.

The knight appeared to have said all that he needed to, for he turned his horse around and left. As the hoofbeats faded into the distance, one of Hunith's friends made her way to her, face tight in worry. Shifting her toddler to one arm, she reached out the other to place a hand on Hunith's forehead. "Are you alright? You look as pale as a ghost."

"I- I'm fine," Hunith balled her hands into fists, fingernails pinching her skin as a painful distraction. Mentally scolding herself, she took a deep breath and envisioned herself as she was, and then clad that self in armour until she was more unassailable than the knight who had brought her such distress. "I didn't sleep well last night, is all."

"Hmm." her friend said, looking not quite convinced but unwilling to push the matter. "Well, if you say so."

Hunith gave what she hoped was a reassuring smile in response, and turned to go home, forcing herself to walk in steps that were unhurried. Lines from excited conversations leaped out at her.

"... how much this king will pay for..."

"...Camelot. Has to be a sorcerer..."

"...frightening to think, what if he..."

"...what do you think he did..."

"...don't want one of them here..."

"...can't trust anyone..."

"...could be passing him on the byway and..."

Hunith shut her door, even though she normally left it open in the summer to let in as much light as possible. She leaned against the frame a moment, her head tilted up and eyes staring listlessly at the ceiling. She could hear the distant sounds of village wife gossip in the streets. What would she do, if one of the women realized that it was two months ago that Hunith took in a man they had never heard of before, for as paltry a reason as kindness done to a second cousin no one knew she had? Or if when they told their husbands around the dinner table about the hunted man, and their husbands realized that a man of that description worked the fields alongside them everyday? Or - heaven forbid - what if the knight went out to the fields to inform the men...

How much did this knight truly know about the man he was hunting? Had Uther sent someone who knew his face?

Trembling, Hunith grabbed a bucket to fetch water - any excuse to leave this house, to meander her way to the fields, to see he was still there and perhaps warn him...

The river they fetched water from ran parallel to the fields. Most of the time she fetched water just outside the village entrance, but now she wandered over to the area by the fields. There he was, stooping down with the other men to ready the fields for the fast approaching harvest. Soon she and the other women would join them in those fields, to bring in the crop as quickly as possible. He looked up when he saw her, eyes crinkling in the small smile that made her heart skip a beat. All worries were chased from her mind; she couldn't think, her head felt light enough to soar through the clouds.

He was fine. The knight had rode off without stopping by the fields. And why should he? There were dozens of little villages dotting the border he needed to get to, and she couldn't imagine Cenred had given a knight of Camelot a long period to stay within his borders, if the trip had been sanctioned at all. Balinor, she whispered to herself, savouring the sound of the secret name on her tongue and thinking how wrong it had sounded coming from the knight - had passed undetected. He was still here, with her, and the profound relief that knowledge gave her was frightening in its depth.

She could no longer deny it to herself.

With every passing day spent together, she was slowly but surely falling for this man whose past was still mostly a mystery but whose present belonged to her just as she belonged with him. Two months ago she hadn't known he existed, and now she couldn't imagine her life without him.

And seeing the gentleness in his warm eyes she could no longer pretend that she didn't know he felt the same way towards her.

/**

* The chapter title comes from a ridiculously catchy song of the same name from the musical The King and I (which is, nicely put, about as historically accurate Disney's Pocahontas). I thought of it while writing this chapter and the lyrics fit surprisingly well.

* This was originally the latter half of chapter 2, but when it was like that it felt too rushed, the budding romance sprang out of nowhere, and Balinor had all the personality of a cardboard cut out. So I split the chapter in two, added a bunch to both chapters, and hopefully gave the characters more depth as a result. If nothing else, I feel more comfortable writing them now. Sorry if the story is dragging a little, but I swear next time there will be an actual real change from canon! (...finally)

* There's still going to be 13 chapters to Season 0: I've deleted one of my more filler-y ideas to keep it the number consistent, which is probably for the best anyways since it wasn't that relevant or fleshed out.

* Antonius and Julia's names come from Marcus Antonius Creticus and Julia Antonia, who were the parents of Mark Anthony and his brother, Gaius Antonius.

* Palance's name comes from the novel The Sword of Shannara where a king by that is brothers (and enemies) with Prince Balinor Buckhannah. Danu's name comes from a Hindu goddess who is the mother of a dragon.

**/