Chapter Text
You peek around the wooden wall into the castle stables, checking for any sign of another presence. Mother doesn’t like you spending time around the horses—she says they’re dirty, and young princesses shouldn’t pay mind to dirty things. You don’t think they’re dirty, though. You think they’re wonderful; strong, beautiful animals capable of running and running across the wilderness as free as any living thing could be. If only they weren’t locked in a stable.
You’d seen them around the castle grounds in their regalia pulling carriages, but never up close. Your newly found rebellious streak told you the time was much past due.
Satisfied at the lack of sound coming from within, you creep further in, crushing some loose straw under your delicate expensive shoes. One of the horses, a striking brown stallion, turns his head over the stall door at the sound of your footsteps. He chuffs, ears pointed in your direction. You approach the stall and reach out a cautious hand to pet his muzzle, but after giving you a glance over he quickly loses interest and turns back around. Your hand, still outstretched, never reached him.
“It’s because you don’t have anything for him,” a voice calls to you.
You jump, startled. You spin your gaze towards the stranger and see a boy in dirty clothes, about your age. Maybe a little older. He’s a bit taller than you, with charming boyish features and dark hair. You hadn’t even heard him come in.
“What?”
“You don’t have anything. He only cares if there’s something in it for him.”
Oh. That makes sense, you guess. You look at your feet, embarrassed at being caught off guard during your little exploration.
“Here, try this.”
The boy strides over, holding a shiny red apple. You take it and rub your finger over its smooth surface, stepping closer to the stall. The stallion, glancing up again and recognizing the fruit in your hands, enthusiastically lowers his head over the stall door towards you. You reach out the hand with the apple, palm flat upwards. He crunches down the whole apple in one bite, then gives an appreciative nicker. You smile. His whiskers had tickled your hand.
You look back to the boy. “Thanks.” You pause. “What’s your name?
He gives you a lopsided smile and shifts his weight, hands on his hips. “Caleb. And you’re the princess, right?”
Your cheeks heat. Of course he knows who you are, who else would a girl in a too-expensive dress creeping around the stables be? There aren’t exactly a whole lot of high-ranking little girls around.
“Yeah. Don’t tell, please. Promise you won’t tell?”
You peer at him with big eyes, a look that always works on your father. He chuckles and ruffles your hair, like you’ve been friends for years.
“Yeah, like I want to be the one to tell that the princess is sneaking around the stables like a little field mouse. Your secret’s safe with me, princess.”
You wince. “Don’t call me that, please.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Oh? And what should I call you, then? Mouse?”
“Call me whatever you like, just not princess.”
For as long as you’ve been able to understand what it meant, you’ve hated your title. It felt incredibly isolating. All it meant to you was uncomfortable dresses and stiff expectations. And that the few other children you’d encounter usually ran away from you for fear they’d say the wrong thing and get their fathers executed. This Caleb boy was a sweet breath of fresh air, and you didn’t want any reminders of the wide gap between your stations.
Caleb exhales another laugh. “Mouse it is, then.”
~*~
That was far from the last time you saw Caleb the stable boy. After your first encounter, you started to see him everywhere. Pushing a wheelbarrow, shoveling hay. He saw you, too. Whenever you saw him across the field or leading horses in the square, he was always already looking at you first. Those sharp eyes never missed your presence.
You began to meet in secret. Whenever you could shake off your tutors and attendants, you went to find Caleb. With him you could breathe. The two of you would laugh and play, catch frogs and climb hills. And when you returned home to the castle at night, hair windblown and hem muddy, you never told anyone where you had been. Or who you were with. You kept the secret, just like he kept yours.
As the two of you got older, things shifted, but your bond never wavered. With age came stricter expectation from your parents—you were almost of eligible marrying age, so your lessons were taken more seriously. Caleb was your bedrock, always there to hear you complain.
One evening of your fourteenth year, after a particularly nasty spat with your mother, you stomped down to the stables overflowing with angry tears. You slammed open the door to the storeroom, eyes immediately searching for his familiar form. You found him quickly; the years had brought him height and breadth, and his work in the stables had toned him in an immensely satisfying way. He was hard to miss.
Caleb’s eyes darted to the door at the sound, catching your furious appearance in the candlelight.
“Good evening to you too, Miss Mouse.”
He reserved the term ‘Miss Mouse’ for when you were in a particularly un-regal state.
“I’ve had it, Caleb, I’ve just had it. I can’t do it anymore.”
“What’s happened this time?”
He rose from the wooden chair he'd been sat in and walked over to you, taking you in a comforting embrace and resting his chin on your head. He smelled like sweat and summer sun. Like Caleb.
“Mother made me recite Fowls in the Frith fifty times. Fifty! And father wouldn’t stop her, as usual.” You sighed and buried your face in his chest, finally starting to calm down.
“Then… the usual. Calling me ungrateful, talking about how my ‘marriage years’ are coming. I don’t want to be married. I don’t want to leave.”
You grip him tighter, and he strokes your hair.
“I don’t want to leave,” you mutter again into his tunic.
He stays quiet for longer than normal, and you look up at his face to see a clouded expression.
“Caleb?” you search his eyes. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing, Mouse.”
“It’s not nothing. What’s wrong?”
You step back out of his arms, concerned. He averts your gaze. He pauses, before taking a breath.
“I’ve been… recruited. Into the knights.”
Your face betrays a look of surprise before you steel it into a more passive expression.
“This has always been your goal, right? Shouldn’t congratulations be in order?”
Caleb had longtime talked about his big dreams with the regiment, always swinging around big sticks like swords. He’d used to march around the fields fighting trees while you looked on, giggling.
He scratched the back of his head. “Well, Mouse, it looks like things to the north are getting a bit out of hand.”
Realization dawns on you slowly. A duke in the north of the kingdom had been stirring up trouble lately, trying to seize power for himself. He’d gotten support of the northern townspeople, and they were proving to be more of a threat than anyone had foreseen.
“They need knights to be trained quickly so they can go help in the fight, and, well… it looks like they want me for that. Within the week.”
You curl in on yourself. “So, you’re leaving.”
He pulls you back into his arms, holding you tighter than before.
“It’s just for a little while, Mouse. Those thugs in the north want the throne and they’re not stopping. How could I live with myself if something happened to you and I didn’t do anything to prevent it?”
You sniffle, tears springing back into your eyes. You ball up his tunic in your fists, clinging to him.
“I’ll come back to you, mouse.”
He leans back and gently takes your chin in his hands, forcing your gaze to him.
“I’ll always come back.”
You sigh resignedly, trying to will the tears away. It was always going to end up like this, eventually. Your paths were doomed to split from the start.
“Alright. As long as you promise.”
You feel around behind your neck, unclasping your necklace. You stand on your tiptoes and reach around him, fixing it on him instead. He looks down at the silver chain and ruby pendant, apple red.
“Mouse, I couldn’t—”
You silence him with a puffy-eyed glare. He stops protesting at once, never able to say no to you.
“It’s so you don’t forget about me.”
He breathes a laugh and reaches up to cup your cheek.
“As if I could if I tried.”