TYOV- Experience 4

 Prompt 22: Create a Mortal you have shaped since birth.

[Created Kenric the Mortal, lost the Lute resource. Experience added to Memory 2]

We fled and fled. Eventually we gave up fleeing. Assumed we had fled far enough. We found a small village, Cwenhild settled in and I put down roots in a nearby woods (so to speak). She wanted to stay with me, "for my own good" as if I can't look after myself.  I promised I'd stay by awhile, as if meaning to leave her there for HER own good within a week. I never did. 

She settled in easily.  Just another poor woman fleeing Danish raiders or whoever. No one gave her a second look. She got herself a family, someone with a good job as cover during the day, and came to see me when she could. Gave me news, looked after me how she could. In return I hunted her the occasional animal, kept brigands and the like away by dealing with the ones unfortunate to get close to the village. I passed their belongings on to her mostly. Made sure she was comfortable.

Never met her husband, and I have no idea if she told him about our arrangement. Who knows how she explained her coming home with food and coin the way she did, and why nothing in the forest ever attacked her when going out at night alone. But she never had a second mob of angry peasants knocking at her door, so she must have thought of something.

Eventually she started bringing company with her. A small child. A baby really. Kenric. I don't think I even realized she was pregnant, though this sudden addition made me realize how much older she was than when we fled. That would become a theme.

It's not that I'm not aware of time passing, but given that I live in a small cave surrounded by trees, and my main way of marking the time is visits from my only friend and the occasional fool who wonders too close, keeping track is...tough.

I decorate as best I can, which sounds silly. A lot of the robbers have fabrics and other pretty things, and I keep a few as well as what Cwenhild won't take (for fear of being too obvious about it, I suppose). So my little corner of the wilderness is at least homely. What I lack I make myself. My wood carving turns to bits of carpentry where I need it.

Besides, making the place nicer isn't entirely motivated by making just Cwenhild feel more welcome. I try to make Kenric feel welcome to.

He keeps visiting, sometimes with his mother, sometimes without. He knows not to tell a soul about me, and it seems like he keeps his word like a good boy. He helps me collect things from around the forest, helps his parents as he should. I teach him a few things to. How to carve, how to play a lute, how to hunt (animals, of course. I teach him the making of rabbit traps from an early age. Makes me laugh thinking how surprised his little friends will be how skilled he is). He picks it all up fast. 

For all the monster I've become over the years, it feels good to have the lad around. The extra company is nice and Cwenhild doesn't need to risk her neck coming out here as often just for sorry old me.

Kenric comes of age. I give him my old lute as a gift. I managed to grab it all that time ago from the old house, and it had lay forgotten for awhile till I noticed how much bigger he had gotten. So I cleaned it up, restrung it, back when I started teaching him. Giving it to him seemed right. Seems the lad went from considering me his "Mummy's secret forest friend" to just "Uncle Godric".

I doubt I'll have children out here, and I was never blessed with siblings, but being an uncle like this feels nice. It's good to smile again.