Dullahan

8 - Uncertainty - 1

HER MIND WAS CROWDED with thoughts and feelings, answers and questions of her own buzzing like flies trying to get her attention. She watched him, helpless, as he turned away from her, as he moved to get as far as he could from her. She watched him as he looked out of the window, and she wondered if he was thinking of his home. She wondered if he missed it, if he resented her for taking him from it, or if he was too terrified of her to feel anything other than hatred.

She didn't know what to do- in the moment, consumed with fury and her own hatred toward the King and his court, striking down the maid had seemed like the correct decision. She had lived here long enough, worked for this Court long enough to know that actions of that kind were the most effective when attempting to communicate. Even now, after she had mulled those short minutes over in her mind over and over again, she wasn't sure what other action would have been appropriate. Was there something else she could have done? The boy- Fenn- seemed to think there was.

The room, small and warm as it was, suddenly felt stifling. The walls felt tight around her shoulders, the ceiling too low, the furniture too close. The box of metal around her felt suffocating, the helmet a cage she was trapped within. She turned, opening the door and stepping back out into the corridor, hands already at the straps holding the damned thing on her shoulders, barely letting the door shut before she wrenched it off, dropping it on the floor beside her. It clattered to the ground, hollow metal ringing out in the sparse hall. She stood still, at a loss for what to do with herself.

She wasn't cut out for this. He could have asked anyone else, and she was sure they would have done a better job than her. She felt as though she had made the wrong choice at every turn since that morning a week ago, as though every action she had taken was the wrong one. She leaned against the door, solid wood a welcome anchor to the world. There was so much she needed to tell him about Telthame, so many tiny rules and rituals that she didn't even realise he didn't know. It hadn't crossed her mind that he wouldn't know not to give out his name- she had been so certain that was why he hadn't introduced himself to her. Her assumptions had almost led them both into disaster.

She let herself sink to the floor, metal clinking against the flagstones, her armour scraping against the wood behind her back. Her helmet lay on its side beside her, empty eye slit dark. She had never felt shame about her lack of head before that week. It was a part of her, as natural as the presence of a limb. Where other Fae might have tails or horns, she simply did not have her head. When someone had pointed it out, when common folk had pointed at her in a crowd and whispered their fears to their companions, she had ignored it. It had not bothered her, it had not touched her, it had meant nothing. But seeing the child she was sworn to protect cower from her, terrified of the lack of something so fundamental, it had wounded her deeply. Watching him edge away from her, reluctant to get close had hurt.

She wondered, then, why he had chosen that name. Was he aware of its previous bearer? He seemed to know so little about his father, she found it doubtful that he had chosen it for a connection to him. She wasn't even sure if he was aware that it used to belong to his father. She stared into the space in front of her, wondering what his thoughts would have been on the entire situation. She wondered if she had done right by him- if this is what he wanted when he had made her make her vow. She wondered if he would have been disappointed in her, in her actions, if he would have made a different decision if he could have seen what happened for himself.

A door at the far end of the hallway opened, one of her fellow dullahans stepping out for their room, the tell-tale ring of armoured boots on stone floors filling the corridor for a moment. Then, the steps faltered, and came to a halt. She looked up- seeing Meirion standing a few paces away, contemplating her.

She looked away, feeling a spark of embarrassment to be caught outside her room. The others all knew of her charge- the King had seen fit to announce it to all of the dullahans present within the castle the previous day. Ness wondered how the news had changed their perceptions of her. She wasn't close with any of them- save Meirion- as a whole, she found they all seemed to prefer keeping as few ties to others as possible. Meirion seemed the only exception- as far as Ness was aware, he was on at least speaking terms with each of them.