"Someone who will love you in all your damaged glory"

I surveyed the grassy fields and the armies arrayed against each other, each side resplendent in their armor, shining in the morning light. The rearing gryphon against the soaring dragon, the brilliant gold banners against deep blue, the east against the west. Some bard was probably composing a fanciful tune about today for the court, waxing poetic about the beauty of conflict and the destiny of men and the blessings of the gods and all that hogwash.

I sighed, knowing that the ground would be bloody mud instead of verdant grass before the day was done. If we weren’t lucky enough to decide the outcome, the bodies of the dead and dying would still be lying there, with the crows and vultures feasting.

Worse yet, it was all for nothing. This battle was no glorious stand against the demons and their allies, nor an honorable defense against the eastern barbarians. Instead, the royal army was here at the whims of a useless brat who appreciated only the power of the throne but not any of the responsibilities. If only the queen were still in power, I thought. If only she had an heir. If only-

I shook my head and sallied forth on Lightning as I saw my counterpart ride from his lines. We both rode armored but unhelmed, and I wondered briefly what rhyme the bards would use to make light of my baldness and his full beard, and who the villain would be in their tellings. Two old men, meeting on a battlefield, each commanding a host, perhaps one representing the past, and one the future.

We met in the middle and took a bit to simply look past each other at our lines, no doubt taking stock and wondering how many men we knew on each other’s sides.

“Sagramore,” he said.

“Bedivere,” I responded.

“You know-“ he started, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes, which stopped him. I saw the ghost of a smile, and snorted at him.

“Yes, I know, First Commander of the Republican Forces - or is it the Grand Republican Army, now?” I asked, sarcastically. “And yet, my duty is to my liege.”

“I think they're still working on the names," he responded, wryly. "But I would remind you that your duty, General, is to the kingdom. And your debt was to your queen. And with her passing-“

“Her nephew is the new king, and his orders are to be obeyed.” I said, cutting him off.

He sighed. I sighed too. Old habits from a dozen years of drinking and campaigning together meant that I already knew what he would say next.

“Even if those orders vain and stupid and will cause the deaths of many fathers and sons, and create widows and leave holes in families?”

“The king’s orders are to be obeyed,” I said, slowly. “You know as well as I do what would happen if every general decided that he knew better than the king or queen.”

“And yet,” he said, continuing even as I held a hand up to stop him. “I also know that following this idiot’s commands and putting good men in harm’s way goes against what you believe.”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” I said. Whether he was right or not, there was nothing to left to say, and I turned Lightning around.

He must have known that I would not yield, but he still urged Cinnamon forward to cut me off, and reached out with an ungauntleted hand.

“You could still join us, Sagramore. We could fight together, like we once did. We could-”

I looked at his hand, and then looked at him, and spoke the last words I expected to ever say to him.

“I will not betray my code, Bedivere. I will not betray my king.”

This time, he let me go. We rode back to our lines, and I raised my sword.

We won the Battle of Accolon Fields, as the bards ended up naming it, though as always it sounds more impressive than it was. Bedivere feinted time and time again with small numbers, didn’t ever commit his main force, and when I finally pressed, he had retreated the majority of his men. Losses were light on both sides, and while we took the ground, I knew that it was not the victory it seemed. If we pressed forth too rapidly, it would be on enemy ground. It would be safer to establish a garrison and slowly move forth.

Unfortunately, the king didn’t see it that way, and commanded us to press on to the west, win the war and put the rebels to the torch. So we advanced. We lost the next battle, at a nearby town, though it was salvaged through some flanking action by a daring calvary commander. Over the next month, we continued deeper and deeper into the west, pushing forward, winning more than we lost, extending our supply lines deeper and deeper, but making steady progress, until we controlled over half of the republican duchies.

It was then that the king sent his latest message: the rebels had not attacked our lines, but instead had struck deep in the east: they had broken through the rearguard at the border, and the nobles that supported the king were demanding protection. I was commanded to both immediately win against Bedivere and return to secure our lands. I was also remonstrated for not having seen this attack coming and told what a useless commander I was, of course.

I remember reading his words over and over, searching for some shred of meaning in the idiocy, fighting the fury that I had rising in me, wondering what miracle the idiot expected me to pull out of my hat. At the end of it all, swallowing everything I felt, I did what I was told, and commanded the army to split up - half to retreat to secure our lands, and half to press forward. I would stay with the attacking force, and I sent my most competent commanders back home to assist in the defense of our lands.

The enemy fell upon us no more than a week later; there was nothing we could do with a diminished force. We attempted to fight our way out, but their calvary funneled us until we were at a great river we could not cross, and I knew it was the end. It would be the enemy's steel or the river that took us.

I called for the men to stop, and in a lull, I rode forward, alone. Someone rode forward to meet me - not Bedivere, who I guessed was leading the eastern front. I asked the commander to spare my men's lives. He told me to dismount and to kneel, and I did, knowing that this was the price to pay, and it was one that I would pay gladly if it meant my men wouldn't be slaughtered.

The last thing I remember was a blow to the back of the head.

I came to in a bed I had never been before, in a house I had never been in, but with someone very, very familiar sitting at the table.

"Oh, finally awake, are you?" he asked, stroking his beard. "Took you long enough."

I would have been less surprised if there was a dark elf sitting there. He simply smiled.

"It appears that you're now a prisoner of war, though I don't expect the war to be very long given that 'King' Felix doesn't have his commanding general anymore. You're a very long way from the front lines, enough that you certainly won't be commanding any troops."

I sat there for a long time. It did not help that my head was throbbing.

"I have a duty-" I eventually started. This time, he stopped me.

"You're a prisoner of war, Sagramore. No one is going to ask you to betray the crown. You're simply confined here, in this farming village, until the war is over, or unless your king decides to ransom you."

"He'd rather have me hung," I snorted.

"Exactly," he said, and smiled again, rising to pat my shoulder. "Don't try to leave, please. The baker's son, Mort, has been instructed to drag you back, by force if necessary. There's a bag of coins on the table, but you'll have to earn your keep soon enough. Now, I need to go win a war."

It had been over two decades since I lived anything close to a village life, but what else was there to do? The villagers didn't know me - or at least, didn't seem to know me; I was simply someone who was fleeing the unrest. Even Mort didn't seem to know who I was; or at least, he didn't treat me with any real suspicion. I wondered if Bedivere had simply told him to keep me here and paid him to do so.

So I stayed in the tiny village of Agravan, a fishing and hunting village on the western edge of the kingdom.

It took a week for me to stop thinking about the war with every moment. I spent that first week alone, mostly, sitting around and staring at the walls and woods, or at the sky. Eventually, though, I realized that the coins wouldn't last forever, and I should make myself useful.

It took me a month for me to start contributing back to the village. I did odd jobs, hauling water, splitting lumber, whatever would earn me a copper or two to buy some bread. Eventually, the baker - perhaps taking pity on an old man that was clearly trying to figure out his place in the world - told me that the garden in the back of the house had some pretty good soil in it, and I should maybe think about growing some vegetables instead of just eating bread all the time. I asked him if the owner of the land would be okay with that, and he shrugged at me and told me that worst case scenario, the owner could just keep the produce.

It took nine months more before an bearded old man - possibly a soldier, by his stature - dropped by, walking in unannounced into the front door. I had some warning - the war was over, Felix had been deposed, the nobles were forming a council with shared powers over the kingdom - but I had grown rather used to days of work and days of rest, and the war was far from my mind.

"Ah, you're back," I said to him.

"Ah, I am," he said, and smiled - at least, until I frowned. I motioned to a seat at the table - I was reasonably sure it was, in fact, his usual seat the table, given that I had worked out from the villagers that this was his childhood house.

"Bedivere... regardless of who won, there are a lot of men who didn't get to go home because of me," I said, sitting at the table and staring at him. "Where are their second chances?"

He sat, too, and then looked back at me. I knew he was about to sigh, and I timed mine to coincide with his. "We had spent decades fighting the demons, and I think you had earned more than to be used and cast aside by an incompetent king," he said, shrugging.

"So you had me squirreled away to the edge of nowhere, where the king would never find me." I said. He nodded.

"And now that the war is over?" I asked.

He shrugged. "You're free to go, of course. There might be a bit of bad blood, but I don't think you'd see any reprisals against you in the east. They seem to be coming along nicely to the idea of not having a monarch."

"Or at least, coming along nicely to the idea that it's not Felix, who was only in it for himself." It felt remarkably freeing to say those words at last.

"Indeed." He said, and then looked at me. Waiting. For me to make a decision.

I held his gaze for a moment, and then another.

"You know," I said, "Would you like to see the garden I have out back?"

"Isn't it my garden?" He asked, bemusedly.

I smiled.