Author's Notes: In getting into this story, I discovered that writing like this without having planned things out is very difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Pairing: None (for now)
Written: 2005
It felt like someone had plowed his head and let left fish to rot in his mouth. The tavern keeper had left him on the floor. His clothes smelled sour, his back reminded him that a floor was not the place to sleep, and he was sticking to the floor.
All this would have been tolerable if Ritter didn't remember what he'd announced right before he'd passed out.
"No one expects you to fulfill a promise made when you couldn't even keep your feet straight," the tavern keeper said. Ritter got to his feet, clutching his head. Then he made a dash for the privy as the smell of fried sausages the tavern served for breakfast hit his nose.
No one would blame him if he pretended that the vow had never been made. It just made Ritter all the more determined to prove everyone wrong. As soon as he stopped dry heaving.
Every step to the farm seemed to resonate in his head. A quick stop at the hand pump and the biting cold water relieved some of the pressure behind his eyes. Ritter opened the door to his house. It wasn't much cooler inside, but it was darker.
In the back spare room that had been his bedroom for the last four years was a huge chest. It had taken Ritter most of the four years to collect. There were short throwing spears and an atlatl, two sizes of crossbows and bolts for both, knives, a short sword, a larger two handed sword, metal studded leather, a dented helmet and a small round shield. Nothing had any heraldic devices on it. Ritter had made sure of it.
It didn't take long for Ritter to check and pack up all the weapons. Years later his hands and fingers still knew the motions. He stripped, replacing his stained clothing with thicker padded clothing. Heat would make him regret the padding, but it was better than chafing from the leather armor.
"I heard about your vow." Ritter's stepfather was standing in the doorway. Of course Jorge would hear of his hasty words. The whole town probably knew about it.
"How many people know about it?" Ritter asked. He didn't even pause in his packing.
"The entire village," Jorge said. That was all the confirmation Ritter needed. He picked up the first pack of weapons, slung them over his shoulder, and headed out the door. "You don't have to do this, Ritter. No one will think any less of you if you don't."
"I know. That's kind of why I need to do this," Ritter said. He went back outside, stifling a curse as the sun once again hit him in the eyes. The stable was dark and Ritter was incredibly grateful for it. "You know me. I can't just let this lie."
"Yes, I do know you." Jorge stepped forward and put a hand on Ritter's shoulder. "This has been a long time coming. Your mother and I have talked about this."
No good conversation had ever begun with that. "Talked about what? Me leaving?" That really shouldn't have surprised Ritter. It did, but it shouldn't.
"About you leaving. Your mother and I... well, you sent us so much over the years. Too much. You never would take it back but we figured that now was as good a time as any." Jorge had never had a way with words. Actions were always easier. "We wanted you to have this."
It was a pouch. A pouch that clinked. Ritter stared at it as he set the weapons on the floor. "I can't take that."
Jorge took Ritter's hand, forced it open, and shoved the pouch into it. "You are always welcome here. Never doubt that. But whether or not you kill that dragon, you always have the option of going somewhere else. You don't have to be Ritter Bris of Applebe any more. You understand?"
"I understand." They were kicking him out. Well, not really, but it felt like that.
"That's a good boy." There was a long awkward moment when neither really knew what to do. "Well. I reckon I'll let you get back to packing. You know better than I what you'll need. Everything in the house is at your disposal."
"Thanks." Ritter watched as his stepfather left the barn. Then he picked up the weapons and went farther inside the barn to get a horse.
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When Ritter was six he was sent to be a dragon slayer. He was the fourth child, the third son by Aylmer and Enide Bris. He cried when he was told he would be sent away until his father took him aside. "Ritter, you have to go away. We are counting on you to become a dragon slayer, to get a title, and to become nobility. Your entire family is counting on you."
The first week Ritter was there he punched a kid two years older than him so hard that the healers had to come out to fix his nose. During the first month, he managed to alienate his entire year. In the first year he was put to work in the stables for six months after he managed to give the entire guild food poisoning.
Letters came every two weeks from his mother. As the years went by, homesickness waned. There were sword drills to master and manners to learn, history to study and lessons in dancing to attend. Being a knight meant being well rounded. Learning filled his days.
Eight years had flown by in a blur of letters and learning. It came something of a shock to Ritter when he was knighted at fourteen. Normally, a knight would be sent out immediately after the ceremony. Since Ritter was a dragon slayer, he had another four years of training to look forward to.
Two days after Ritter turned sixteen, he got the letter from his mother telling him that his father had died.
It didn't take him long to figure out the implications to this. His father had spent most of his money seeing that his family moved up in the world. There was little left to help run the farm.
Stunned by shock and grief, Ritter had taken Lucifer in the middle of the night and set off to kill his first dragon. There was a bounty on any dragon slain in the kingdom, regardless of whether they were contracted to do it. That was what he was looking for. Quick money that he could send home to his family.
Killing a dragon at sixteen with only half his training would not be easy, but Ritter was determined. His mother was depending on him
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Ritter was not having a good day.
For starters, he hated his stepfather. He understood what the man was saying. Jorge didn't want him to settle for a life. He wanted Ritter to be happy. That didn't make leaving his home, again, any easier to bear.
He hated Alysa Wyneheart and her flightiness. If she had just gone along with the marriage every thing would have been fine. They could have gotten along. It wouldn't have been the best marriage ever, but it could have worked. That would have been good enough for Ritter.
Then there were the insects. Fat dogflys buzzed around Plod's head, chased off by the gelding's flicking ears or headshakes. Some of them had given up on Plod and had migrated to Ritter. Every few steps he had to swat at his head to chase away the biting insects.
It was as hot as Ritter had predicted. Sweat gathered under the padded clothes and leather armor. His back was damp and his exposed skin gritty from the dusty road. There was no breeze. A blister was forming on the back of one heel where his work boots were wearing away the skin. They were not meant for long distance walking.
A small group of villagers had seen him off. One had actually wished him luck. Most of the rest had stood around and tried to talk him out of going. A few of them had actually joked about how much work it would be to go up the mountain and find his body if he went, so wouldn't he just do them a favor and stay here? Applebe's outpouring of support was overwhelming.
"I don't even know why I'm doing this," Ritter said to the black gelding. Plod flicked an ear in his direction but kept walking. "Chivalry is dead to me. Honor is a fool's quest. I don't believe in any of that."
Which was exactly why he was trekking up a mountain to kill a dragon, thereby breaking another oath he'd made to himself years ago.
"This is stupid." Ritter pulled the horse off the road, to let the gelding drink from a small stream. Plod slowly followed. He was at the edge of the stream when his foot slipped. There was a brief moment where Ritter fought to keep his feet. In the end, his boots were soaked, his pants muddy, and his hands scraped from trying to keep his balance.
Plod happily munched grass along the bank.
"What? WHAT?" Ritter yelled. Birds took to startled flight from the tree. Even Plod stopped his grazing long enough to stare at Ritter as he yelled up at the sky. "Is getting dumped and then having to kill a dragon not enough? I need to suffer more? Come on! Make this whole situation worse. I dare you."
Having taken some of his frustrations out on the sky, Ritter felt better. Sometimes it just helped to yell. He stood in the stream, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. That's when it started pouring rain.
Ritter made an incredibly rude gesture towards the sky, and then began the muddy process of climbing back up the stream bank.
Somehow, it didn't surprise him when he twisted his ankle in the process.
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One of the first things the Dragon Slayer's guild did was get its recruits use to horses. Those from poorer farming communities or city dwellers who were not nobility had only seen horses from a distance. The youngest recruits often ran errands for the stable master in between lessons of reading and writing. As they grew older, they began to take harder chores like mucking stalls or feeding, watering and grooming the horses in residence. Riding lessons began at age eight, when most of them had lost any fear of the animals.
When they turned eleven, trainees were given their palfrey. It was entirely their responsibility. Those who neglected their horse were sent home in disgrace. A horse was a knight's most valued possession.
They were encouraged to name their horses based on personality or a virtue. Ritter called his plump bay mare Grace. She trained him as much as he trained her.
When he turned fourteen, Ritter got his first destrier. He was a huge gray warhorse that had the temperament of a demon. Here was a stallion that kicked and bit, and had a tendency to buck Ritter off into the dirt if he thought he could get away with it. His teacher had been appalled when he called the horse Lucifer, but the stable master had almost hurt himself laughing.
Lucifer had died in his sixth confrontation with a dragon. Back when Ritter was still desperately learning how not to get himself killed. He had gone down and Lucifer had against all reason and good sense, had charged the dragon. The stallion had gone down screaming. Ritter had shot the dragon in the eye when it was distracted, had killed it with a spear not long after.
For all that he had cursed his luck at getting the fickle gray, Ritter knew Lucifer had saved his life. He never forgot.
His second destrier was a calm, sweet tempered mare he called Patience. The mare would do all that he asked, but if left to her own devices, would scramble out of the way and munch grass till the fight was over. Ritter had had her a little over a year before some bad hay at an inn forced him to put her down in her stall. The guild had stripped the innkeeper of his land in retaliation.
Champion was his last destrier. He was big and black and had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what a dragon was going to do before Ritter did. He lasted five years as a dragon slayer's mount, far longer than most horses in the profession. Rather than have him go to another less experience knight, Ritter had bought him back from the guild.
When he returned home, Ritter gave Champion two mares. Both of were sturdy farm stock. For two years the stallion produced some of the strongest, bravest and ugliest foals. He passed away one winter, having simply lain down in the snow to die.
In the grand tradition of knights everywhere, Ritter had named the foals after their personalities. Even after he'd sold them, he found out the horses had kept their names. Ugly worked one of the other farms in the village. Honeybee pulled a cart for some gypsies that wandered through the area. Chancy had the dubious honor of never being saddle broken, though he was as calm as a child's pony when it came to pulling a plow.
Plod was the only foal Ritter had kept. The stocky black horse reminded him too much of Champion for him to let go. He earned his name. No matter how quickly you wanted him to go, the gelding just plodded along.