"You and Merlin need to practice how you address Royalty."
"I promise you, your highness, I try, but it's never done me any good in the past."
"Its Prince Arthur..." He paused, likely realizing he didn't know my name. "And you are?"
"I'm but a commo...
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WHERE TO BEGIN? Known also as... {VALIANT :: Part One}
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I'd spent most of my life living in, or near, one city or another. The roads smelled like sewage in the heat of summer. The houses towered over you as the people crowd you. Clotheslines crisscrossed from one building to another. It will always be the same.
Thankfully, I had long grown accustomed to their dirty, noisy streets and their more or less lively people.
Kids and stray dogs disturbed the peace and wasted the day away with no expectation of true responsibilities. People went about their businesses, greeting each other and trading news. The occasional Blood Back patrol made its rounds, making sure everyone stayed in line.
Regardless of familiarity, a city's walls can easily become too much to bear. The only place to retreat to would be the surrounding woods. Yet in a city like Londinium, a task like that could be taxing. From where our home borders Cheapside and Midtown, it can take around a half hour to traverse the cramped metropolis to reach the edge of the city- then a few minutes more to truly be in the woods.
The only reason I paid no mind to the extra effort it took to escape Londinium, was that it had the privilege of being called home. Camelot, I'm the other hand, was like a reoccurring nightmare.
Still, if the kingdom capital had one advantage over my hometown, it was its woods that laid just beyond the lower town.
That was where I found myself most mornings; laying under the trees as the gentle world came awake around me.
My bow laid beside me, ready for when I chose to start my hunt. It was all done in secret of course. I wouldn't want my head being taken off for something as small as pouching- although I wasn't too sure what the principles were for the grounds around Camelot.
I twirled a piece of grass between my fingers as I mindlessly pondered. I couldn't decide which one would receive the worst punishment; Uther knowing I was more than a merchant, or being caught poaching on castle grounds.
Not being caught at all seemed the better choice.
Even if I was caught poaching, it wouldn't without reason. There were sick families outside the city walls that needed food. I wasn't going to stop what I was doing just because I was risking time in the stocks.
In the deep blue hours before dawn, I ventured out to a small pond I had stumbled across the day before and downed a goose and a pair of wild turkeys. My ground traps were empty, but I wasn't surprised. I had had little hope for them since my trapping skills were rusty at best.
