Chapter Text
Damien sighs in annoyance as he passes what he’s pretty sure is the same tree he’s passed three times already. He’s tired, and he should be closing in to the Second Citadel by now, but the forest around him seems insistent on making him take turns and disorient him to the point he’s not sure he traveled more than a mile towards his goal in the last four hours.
Were he anywhere else, he would endeavour to rest for a while before he tries to go further, figuring his exhaustion cannot be helping his capacity to find his way, but the woods here are known for being treacherous, and he has no assurance his sleeping form won’t make him the target for wild, hungry beasts.
Or worst, monsters.
No rest for Damien, then, even if he feels like the world is swimming ever so slightly in his eyes, and he is starting to convince himself those trees in front of him are waving at him in invitations.
He blinks and the illusion disappear, only leaving him in a cold, damp part of the forest he does not have the energy to wax poetics about.
Never has he thought he would miss his uncomfortable cot in the guards tower so dearly.
But now is not the time to let his thoughts stray, especially if he wants to find his unfortunately small bed before the night is upon him.
He has no doubt it is darker here than it ever is in the Citadel.
He’s resolutely marching in what he hopes is a straight line to the Citadel when he hears a faint sound. He stops to listen, and it sounds like someone distractedly chanting a nice folks song… he can hear words here and there, something maybe about a river.
Almost on reflex, he goes towards the voice. Saints, is someone out in the middle of the forest so near the fall of night? Or has he somehow gotten so turned around he has now reached yet another small village?
His thoughts are interrupted when he reaches a small clearing, and lays his eyes on the woman in the middle of it.
There are a lot of words, big and small that could describe her - entire sonnets and ballads to be written, no doubt - but in his exhaustion, Damien can only come up with one.
Beautiful.
His mouth manages no more eloquence than that.
“Oh” he says, and feels the sound escaping him like an errand beat of his heart, punching out of his chest.
She startles at the sound and whirls around, her basket of mushroom falling to the side as she turns on him, her small knife pointed directly at his chest.
“Who are you?”
Damien’s eyes widen and he holds his hands up immediately.
“Oh! I mean no harm: I’m Sir Damien: a knight of the Second Citadel, sworn to protect and serve. I’m sorry if I have frightened you.”
The words don’t seem to appease her, and Damien is careful not to move threateningly as she studies him. The defiance comes as no particular surprise: while he endeavours to respect the knight’s duties to the letter, he knows that is not the case of every knight under the authority of the Queen, and it has happened once or twice that some common folks have had less than positive encounters with the guards.
She’s even more beautiful with the light hitting her at it does wearing her guarded expression. Her long braid is embedded with fresh, pale blue flowers who shine softly over the lustrous dark of her hair. Some rebellious strands have escaped their gleamering prison and they gently come to rest around her face, caressing her cheeks like Damien already longs to do. The hand holding her knife is sure and steady, and her arms speak of labour and effort, while the stance she’s set in is one of a queen leading her troops to battle.
She looks like a goddess, ready to strike him down and deliver her divine judgement, and as Damien’s heart bangs on his ribs in the hopes to be delivered, he doesn’t know whether he wants to be found guilty or innocent.
Then the moment pass, and the woman lowers her knife.
“A knight of the Citadel. I see. And what are you doing here?”
“I am merely crossing the woods to go back to the Citadel, after a long and arduous mission that has taken me far and wide, leaving me tired and a bit confused as to my whereabouts, I must admit.”
The woman raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.
“So… you’re lost.”
“Well-“ Damien sigh inwardly, hoping he doesn’t look quite as foolish as he feels, although it is probably too big a wish to be granted. “Yes. I rather am.”
“Alright. Well, it’s pretty simple then. You are in the Eastern wilds, and you’re not all that far from the Citadel. You just have to go west, follow the dog’s paw in the sky when night falls, or left from the patterns of moss on the trees and you should get there in two hours.”
She points the direction to him in a rehearsed tone, her guard slowly slipping from her limbs as she gets back to putting the spilled mushrooms back in her basket. Damien looks in the direction she just advised him to take, and then back at her. It is, after all, almost night, and it is his knightly duty to protect the citizen from all parts of the kingdom. Even if his heart wasn’t eager to expose itself to her light, he couldn’t, in good conscience, leave her on her own.
“Um, but… milady?”
She raises her head towards him, looking distantly wary again.
“I should probably accompany you home. Night will soon be upon us and those are dangerous woods.”
She stares him down, her basket held firmly against her hips.
“That’s very kind of you, sir knight, but I assure you I don’t need it. I know these woods well, and I live close by. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“But!” Damien protests heartily “It is known there are beasts roaming those woods at night, and it is my duty as a knight to protect every person that might need it. I could never forgive myself if you happened to need assistance and couldn’t get it because of my laziness.”
“I really don’t need-“
“I must insist!”
Her mouth curls in an annoyed twist, and she looks as though she's ready to draw her blade again, but instead she sighs with resignation.
“You really don’t quit do you?”
“Not when the fate of those I have sworn to protect is at stake, no!”
She turns away to get back at her mushrooms.
“Fine, then. Since you’re here, I’ll use your protection – the word is spat out unkindly, but he tries not to take offense – to get some more herbs. I hope that’s fine with you, mister Knight of the Citadel.”
Damien forces his lips to stay still, despite the burning need he has to ask she refer to him by his name. It seems she already thought his protection a burden, and while he would not renounce her safety, it seems wise not to inconvenience her any more than he already has.
“Yes, milady.”
“Well then,” she gets up, leaving behind a patch of grass devoid of the white shapes she’d been collecting. “Let’s go, shall we? And if you would mind dropping the milady… I’m hardly one of those stuffy court lady who are too afraid of the sun to ever step outside”
“I- Well- That is… You didn’t grace me with your name.”
The sentence gives her pause.
“That I didn’t.” She gives him an indecipherable look, before letting out a little sigh. “You can call me Rilla.”
“Lady Rilla,” Damien enthuses with a smile “that is a beautiful name, and one I shall remember.”
“Right.” Rilla says abruptly, turning around. “I’m going now,” she throws over her shoulder, her pace already quick and sure, “if you really want to offer your protection to me.”
“O-Of course!”
He follows her lead hastily.
“Lady Rilla?” Damien asks quietly.
They found themselves deeper into the forest, near a small lake on the shorelines of which grew an impressive diversity of plants. Most of those, Damien had never seen: some had striking, colorful petals which shone faintly in the light of the rising moon, and some other looked as black as night, their head sadly hanging down towards the ground as the sun ceased to grant them its magnificent light. It was a beautiful, mesmerizing sight, even at night as Damien tried to listen to all the sounds in the woods, on high alert for something, anything to come attack them. If anything or anyone came, they had better be ready for his diamonds and his blade, because he wouldn’t hesitate to use them to defend the most beautiful flower of them all, the gentle lady Rilla he’d just met.
She wasn’t saying anything to him, though, and hadn’t since he’d followed her to this beautiful clearing. She was picking up flowers, with a precision that looked rehearsed but that he couldn’t parse himself. By now, the night had completely fallen, and Damien could only see black and white shapes as they were illuminated by the moon, and the circle of brightness Rilla had made by starting a small, controlled fire near the water.
She’d amassed quite a load already.
“Yes?” she says without looking from her flower picking. She’s been fiddling with the one she has in her hand for a while now, using a string to apparently bind the stem in a specific way so the petals of the flower couldn't open the way they normally would. Damien doesn’t think he’s ever seen something like this.
“Could I maybe help with your work? It is getting late.”
It’s too dark for him to decipher the look she sends him, but after a second of hesitation, she nods.
“Actually, it would be very helpful if you could pick up blue laminaes for me. They’re blue, with rather long petals hanging down. I need a dozen of them.”
Damien nods with enthusiasm and gets to work, browsing the flowers by the water. He spots some flowers that seem like they could correspond to what Rilla described. The faint illumination isn’t enough for him to distinguish its color with certainty, but it looks blue enough to him. The petals seems like they could be long enough.
He takes one and sniffs it. The smell is somewhat pleasant, spicier than he would have exp-
He sneezes loudly, the movement hurting his temple.
“Bless you” says lady Rilla, now standing close by. She’s holding her basket high on her hips. It looks heavy. Damien tries and blink to chase the blurriness away from his eyes. It doesn’t work. “Have you found the blue laminae?”
“I think” Damien tries to say, but the sound coming out of his mouth is garbled and wheezy. He sneezes again, and it makes his head poud even harder than before, as if Angelo had used his head as a training dummy.
“What did you- that’s not a laminae!”
The world around him is turning at high speed, and he fears he might fall, gravity pulling him dangerously to the side.
“Sir knight, did you smell that plant? Sir Damien?!”
She called my name! Damien thinks nonsensically before the light goes off.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Damien passes out.
He comes to to the sound of birds chirping, a high and happy sound.
His head hurts.
The room around him is dark and cluttered. Looking down, he can see a small window from which a beam of sunlight is poured into the space, not doing much to quite liven up the rest of it.
There’s an opening on the other side, covered by a dark curtain hanging down to the floor. Next to it is a hook from which are hanging several coats and capes. There, Damien recognizes the dark, simple cape Rilla had been wearing the previous night.
Or was it the night before that? How long had he been unconscious? What had this flower been? And how had Rilla brought him here? Had she been the one to drag him through the woods? Alone and defenseless?
He tries to call for her, but the house stays silent. Next to the bed was a chair and a little bedside table, on which were sitting a rough, thick cloth and a metal cup. Has this been the antidote to whatever plant he’d intoxicated himself with?
Damien tries to get up, but as soon as his head disconnects from the warm bed, a sharp pain blinds him, and he shakily drops back down, closing his eyes to lessen the strain.
He wakes up again as a warm, soft cloth is dragged over his brow.
Rilla smils down at him, looking gently exasperated with him. It's a look Damien know well from the various scraps he gets himself in. The nurses back at the Second Citadel have always been charming, he's sure, but they've got nothing on the warm glow emanating from his current caretaker.
“Hello, sir knight. Feeling better?”
He smiles tentatively back.
“Much better, milady. Dare I assume you had something to do with it?”
“I did! Are you feeling any pain? It should be dissipating by now but you still have some of the poison in your system.”
“Not at all! You did an excellent job, milady! I’m feeling perfectly fine!” He tries to sit up to prove his point but the pain between his temples sharpens again, and he has to let out a sharp breath at the strain.
“Right.” Rilla says, stern and unimpressed. “You’re definitely staying in bed.”
“I assure you, milady-“
“Damien, is it?” She interrupts him, and there it is again, an imperious, severe gaze, worthy of a queen.
Those eyes aren't ones Damien is eager to cross.
“Yes, milady.”
“Well, Damien. As your doctor, I am ordering you to stay in this bed until I’m done treating you. And you should know I have restraints for difficult patients. Is that clear?”
Damien feels like a scolded child, and he can feel his cheek heat at the reprimand.
“Yes, mi-“
She sends him another sharp look.
“Yes, doctor.”
“That’s better.” Her stern expression morphes into gentle, if somewhat distant, concern. “You still have to rest for a whole day before I can release you. You managed to breath in a lot of that poison.”
“Can I ask… milady, what happened? Surely you didn’t knowingly ask me to search for a poisonous flower.”
She looks back warily.
“Of course not. You simply found the wrong strand. The black gloriosa can be extremely dangerous, and you’re lucky I had so many flowers at my disposition to make an antidote.”
“Oh.”
“Yes “Oh”. So now, take your broth and rest. You still have to sweat the rest of it out, and I’ll send you on your way tomorrow.”
Damien looks dumbly at the bowl she thrusts into his hand before slowly taking it. The woman hastily gets up, striding to a corner set up with a table and what looked like alembics and test tubes. She takes hold of an instrument, and immediately begins fiddling with something on the table, the angle forbidding Damien to see what she's doing from where he's resting. He looks at her as he gulps down the antidote she’s made for him. It has a strong, bitter taste, sweetened with honey and what he has to assume must be some edible flowers and fruits. It doesn't taste incredibly good but it doesn't taste foul either, and he has to appreciate the lady’s effort to make the ingestion as painless as possible.
“Um, Lady Rilla?”
“Yes?” she says, without looking away from her experiment.
“Thank you for saving my life.”
She huffs a derisive snort, throwing a quick glance his way before returning to her observations.
“What kind of doctor would I be if I left you to die in the wilds?”
Damien chuckles softly, admiring her as she keeps on working. The sun hits her skin gently when she leans over the table to frown at her experiments and mark something down on a parchment. Her dark skin looks warm and soft, her expression concentrated with the occasional raised eyebrows. She fidgets and talks under her breath as she works, and more than once has to get up and leave the room, stepping back through the curtain with a heavy book in her hand, or to select a flower from the bundle she’d apparently managed to get the night before, despite Damien’s intervention and subsequent illness.
He watches her with eyes half-lidded, half-awake and ready to sink into a resting sleep.
“Lady Rilla?” he ends up asking softly.
“Yes?”
“You seem like a very talented doctor. Have you never thought of going to the Second Citadel to use its resources and deepen your talents?”
She pauses in her observation to look at him, and the light from her sole windows decorates her face with stark shadows.
“You should sleep, Damien.”
And so he does.
He wakes up again to Rilla depositing another bowl full of broth on his bedside. She helps him get settled more comfortably against the pillow and they ate together, he, his concoction of medicine and honey, and her what smells like some kind of delicious soup.
“So, how does one become knight of the Citadel?” Rilla finally asks, breaking the somewhat awkward silence.
“Oh! I believe there are many paths one can follow to attain such a title! I myself trained with that sole goal, as becoming a knight has always been my dream!”
Rilla shoots him a disbelieving look.
“Really? What’s so interesting to work under the command of the Queen that you would dream of it?”
“Being a knight is about protecting the citizen of the kingdom and the Second Citadel! It’s a duty I couldn’t be prouder of!”
Her expression stays a tad skeptical but a soft smile graces her lips at his words.
“Well that does seem to be a worthy goal. And you never wanted to do anything else?”
“I did, but I assure you I didn’t need to abandon my calling to devote myself to my passion, milady! The words as they are cannot be contained by my passionate heart, and I couldn’t repress them would I want to.”
“Words?” and she is smiling fully now, the expression open and gentle, a beautiful contrast to the stern posture and words she’s addressed Damien with previously. There is a poem to write about that smile, that soft curve of her lips that could either scorn or praise, like the gentle petals of a rose made dangerous by the sharp thorns hiding on its stem. A rose both able to charm you or stab you into submission. Damien’s beating heart sends warmth to his core and his cheeks, and he can feel himself blush under the frank gaze of the tranquil goddess by his bedside.
“Words,” he repeats, feeling the word shake nervously as it pushes past his lips, “I am known for my words as much as my bow, if not more, milady, as I am a poet.”
“A poet! I see!” Her tone is light and teasing but her eyes smile with kindness, and once again Damien feels his heart swell with a burgeoning love for this incredible lady. “And do you have any piece to grace me with, since I find myself in the presence of such a notorious patient?”
“Oh , um well, if it is for your pleasure…” Damien’s eyes eers to the flowers still by her work bench, the shiny curves of her braid, the gentle line of her proud jaw… “I could-”
There is a strange sound just outside the house, like the sound of several feet stepping all at once on a haystack, but softer, and a velvet, gentle voice carrying a few bars of a song Damien doesn't know.
Rilla’s eyes widen at the sound.
“Mila-”
She silently pushs her hand against his mouth to keep him from talking, and mouths “Quiet” with a warning glance when he tries to protest.
“Amaryllis?” A call comes from outside, but it's an entirely different voice than the one Damien has heard instants earlier. It's deep and raspy, rattling and hissing like a serpent with a cough.
It sounds entirely inhuman.
“I’m here!” The lady calls back, with a last warning glance at Damien. She stands up swiftly, leaving her bowl by Damien’s bedside. “Don’t come in! I’m working on something and you’d only have snooty commentaries to make!”
She takes her coat and puts it on, quickly taking a piece of paper as she does and scribbling something on it, before handling it to Damien with another stern stare and going to the other room, carefully covering the hole with its curtain.
Stay quiet and wait here. I’ll be back.
Damien frowns at the paper, an icy feeling creeping up in his chest where there had only been warmth moments ago. That voice he’d heard outside…
The front door opens, and the voice again, clearer this time, although it does nothing to alleviate its monstrous quality.
“Rilla, I-”
The door shuts before any other words can be heard.
Damien stays on the bed, alert, trying to strain his ears to hear more. But the voices are too soft and far away now, muffled by distance and the walls of the little house. What is this beast, who so casually comes to threaten such a beautiful lady in her own home? And it seems like this isn't the first time - or even the second - this has happened… Is Rilla being threatened? Living in fear of a monster imposing its reign of terror over her tranquil part of the woods? She had avoided the question of her installing a practice in the Second Citadel… Could that be because she was kept a prisoner here? Forced to obey to the whims of a vile creature?
That last thought sends a spike of cold in Damien’s heart. To imagine such a beautiful, kind, imperious lady being reduced to the mere servant of a terrible monster puts the seeds of a terrible anger in his heart. This is an injustice he couldn’t suffer to see! This monster who had imprisoned his lady in such a way deserved for justice to be swiftly served in the form of Damien’s carefully sharpened arrows.
She had told him to stay put and not make a noise, surely out of fear that her saving a knight - even simply an human, most likely - would anger the beast and see her harmed, but Damien could be covert when he needed to be. He wasn’t the trusted knight of the Queen alongside Angelo without reason after all. He would spy this beast’s whereabouts with enough discretion Rilla wouldn’t suffer any fallout from his actions and once he was recovered, he would rid her of her plague for ever.
He lets himself an instant to think of her expression as she learns he’s freed her of her torment, her smart smirk softened in a moment of joyous relief, and her eyes full of mirth once she realizes she is free. Then would be the time for Damien to reveal his poem, made of her many perfections and the flowers she surrounded herself with.
But now wasn’t the time for dreaming. Not until he’d actually liberated Rilla from her oppressor.
Slowly, silently, he stands up from the bed. Actually pushing up on his feet made him feel dizzy for a second - maybe Rilla had been right to force him to lay in bed that first time he’d tried to get up - but he catches himself with no further problem and feels steady enough to take careful steps towards the curtains separating the two downstairs rooms. He sneaks silently and quickly through the opening, making sure to replace the curtain the way it had been before.
The other room was roughly the same size as the one Damien had woken up in, but he didn’t waste any time admiring it. Fairly close to the wooden door that served as the main entrance, was a small window, with a thick, greenish glass. The view from it was clear, though. Damien creeps closer, making a small detour to make sure he couldn't be seen in the house by whoever might be watching, and risks a glance outside.
He spots Rilla easily: she is a dozen yards away, standing beyond the clearing in which the house is seated, at the edge of the woods. She is talking to another figure, and upon seeing it, Damien’s breath catches in his throat.
The monster is a hulking beast, at least two heads taller than Rilla - who isn't all that shorter than Damien himself - and only looks human in the way it stands on two legs. But istead of two arms it has four arms of them, a pair crossed against its large chest, and another waving through the air, the shining claws at the end of its hand much too close to Rilla’s body for Damien’s comfort. The monster is speaking, and Damien looks on, horrified, as it opens a snout like mouth full of sharp teeth, seemingly to snap at Rilla about something. It has a scaly, hard-looking body, and even if its face is too alien to Damien for him to decipher its expression, it does not look like it was having a nice or calm conversation with Rilla.
Is it threatening her? Damien has been instructed by Rilla not to make himself noticeable, and he will honour her wishes as much as he can, but if this beast tries to hurt her… he won't be able to just stay aside.
The monster seems to stop talking, instead listening to what Rilla is saying. Damien can't see her face, turned away from the opening he is watching the both of them out of. He feels his blood boil as he sees the beast take hold of one of the lady’s hand, and crowding closer to her. What is it doing to her? How does it dare approach such a beautiful, fierce lady? How does it dare impose its will on her in this manner?! Damien will-
He jumps as the monster suddenly looks in his direction, striking, violet eyes turning sharply towards the window. Damien quickly movs out of the way, hoping it hasn’t seen him.
He can feel his heart beating in his chest like thunder, his breast hurting with the vigor of the organ. He tries to strain his ears again, but he can only hear a low murmur of voice, light enough that it can only be Rilla. After a full minute, he finally risks looking again, to see the monster starts to turn away from Rilla. Quickly, Damien turns back on his heels to return to the room where he was supposed to be resting. He is barely in the bed that he hears the door to the house open, and Rilla enters her home with a sigh. Damien closes his eyes and pretends to have fallen into a dazed slumber while Rilla was out of the house, but he can't stop his eyes from flickering open as soon as she pushes the curtain open.
“Another client.” She says curtly before Damien can ask any question.
“Oh… That- You must be very famous indeed for your art in this part of the country!” Damien fumbles with his words, the easy atmosphere of before now heavy and gloomy.
Rilla pauses an instant, looking at him with a long, contemplative gleam in her eyes.
“I suppose so.”
She turns away from him, concentrating back on her work with the flowers, and completely ignoring Damien.
It can't have been longer than an hour, although Damien feels dreadfully bored, when she suddenly gets up again, and tugs on Damien’s shoulder to stir him of his pretend slumber.
“Alright, Sir Knight. Time for you to get discharged.”
From what she told him this morning, she's ready to let him go much earlier than what she originally said. But she obviously looks agitated, and Damien does't want to spook her more than she already is, so he says nothing.
She rests a hand on his forehead for an instant, and seemingly satisfied, gestures for him to get up. She then proceeds to ask a series of question: is he dizzy? Uncomfortably hot or cold? the whole examination barely lasts five minutes, before she tells him he should be fine, and only needs to get home to a warm bed and take it easy for a day or too. It felt like time was accelerated as Damien gathers his things and readies himself for his trip back to the citadel. He dearly wants to stay some more at Rilla’s side, but she hadn’t extended any invitation in that regard, and overstaying his welcome wouldn’t have endeared him to her heart, so Damien reluctantly complied with the quick dismissal.
“There you go,” Rilla says at last, giving him a small loaf of bread and a lantern as they part way. If you go in this direction, you should find a path. Take it in direction of the South, and you’ll find yourself at the Citadel in under two hours.”
Damien bows with a regretful smile.
“Thank you Milady. I’ll take my leave b-”
“Damien.” Rilla cuts in. Her voice is hard and the eyes she lays on him are determined. “I know you’re a knight of the Citadel. And while that isn’t necessarily a title I trust, I believe you wear it proudly and with compassion.” She pauses an instant, her face bathed in the orange light of the sunset. She has a quiet determination written in the lines of her face, and Damien’s admiration was battling with her calling of his duty. “I’m sure you mean well, but whatever you do, my business is my business.”
“Rilla-”
“I don’t know what you think you know.” she talks over him, and her voice and eyes are hard once again, so much so that Damien is a bit surprised she isn't threatening him with a dagger again. “But I would appreciate you not reporting it to the Citadel.”
“If you’re in danger-”
She looks at him with wide, incredulous eyes, before they go soft again.
“I am not in any danger, Damien. There is no danger for me in these woods.”
The words are gentle but firm and final, and Damien knows he can't dispute them. Not right now, at least. She has to have a reason for which she doesn't want the Citadel to know of her predicament.
“Rilla… I-”
She doesn't resist when he - as gently as he can - takes her hand, although she looks surprised at the gesture.
“When can I come see you again?”
“Damien…” She smiles, but it is soft and sad, and Damien feels a piece of his heart break away when she takes her hand back, slowly, like the tranquil but inescapable push of the tide. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Oh.”
She gives him a tight smile.
“Farewell, Damien.”
And before he can protest any further, she turns away and marches right back into her home, not looking back when she throws open the door and closes it with a rather loud ‘bang’.
“Farewell, Milady,” Damien murmurs, alone in the clearing.
He has to close his eyes an instant and let the pain of his torn heart wash away over him, but if Rilla doesn't want to see him again, she probably doesn't want him loitering outside her home either.
With feet like lead and tears barely contained, Damien starts in the direction of the Citadel.
Every steps away from her felt like they were tearing a bit of his heart away, but he only dabbled away the tears in his eyes and carried on.
To the Citadel.