Much has changed, and yet feels the same. The wooden home I once thought to be a large place feels tight. The walls seem the same, but certain things aren’t where I remember them. The atrium still has the hearth in the middle of the circular room. Instead of the grey stones, I used to see as a child, there are different colored river stones protecting the surroundings from the flames. The skylight is still open giving way for smoke to exit when cooking. I walk over to the living room, taking the top steps down from the atrium. Of all the places, it is this one that feels smallest. I don’t have to go to my room to know it.

The carpet underneath my boots is different but the rocking chair is still the same old wooden and chipped chair. The wood furnish at the handles is pale, but the chair still rocks with the wind the open window brings in. That’s another aspect that seems smaller than normal. The living room window is one that covers nearly the entire wooden wall, with herbs planted in front of it inside, and ostravias on the outside. Some bloom in their pots following the direction of the sun while the rest of their vines climb up the outside walls like ivy.

I touch the top of the window to test the difference. Beyond my better judgment, it feels like the house has shrunken, and not that I’ve grown taller. My head turns and I stare at the two other entryways that are covered by hand knitted curtains. As I approach mine I noticed the new embroidered flowers my curtain has etched on it. Something I was promised by Merideth when leaving Skyland. Pushing the curtain aside I step in. My room is the same. Untouched, or so I think.

I arch a brow at a folded piece of paper on my bed. Something I don’t remember. Picking it up I read the elegant handwriting, my handwriting…

“Future me, if you are back that means you were knighted! Only if you really are, which you probably are, can you open this letar.” I cringe at the misspelled word. My heart is beating rapidly. I sigh.

I sit on my bed and fiddle with the note. I stand. I place it on top of my wardrobe. There’s no need to read that right now. I am a knight, but I don’t need to read it.

Looking around the room it’s been kept clean, even the sheets smell like fresh laundry. Sitting back on the bed I let my body fall back and drag my pillow to me. Another note is under the pillow. I feel nauseous.

The blurry image of my handwriting it comes to my mind. I had placed it underneath the pillow as a surprise. I push the note and allow it to slip and fall behind the headrest and close my eyes. Why am I so nauseous? Just...breathe. 

➢➢➢➢➢➢

The sound of chatter and the smell of food wakes me up. The air dances with the smell of fresh bread, cooked Cielands dashed with salt, pepper, garlic, and parsley. My stomach protests, and the familiar meal, I am certain is Mamá’s famous soup and chicken. I exit my room to be greeted by some of the village children excitedly. It takes me a moment to recognize their faces. The main ones being Lily, Cieland, and Argus.

“Tamen, you’re up!” The first to speak was the first to go get Mamá earlier today.

“Of course he’s up, you were talking loudly so that he would!”

Cieland glares at Lily, “Was not!”

“Was to!”

“Was not!”

Argus tackles me in a hug ignoring the fighting kids. They’ve grown. Argus for one has longer curly hair than I remember. Cieland’s dark waves have lightened, and Lily seems to have cut hers down leaving behind short bouncy coils.

I smile at the boy hugging me and hug him back, “Hi, Argus.”

He beams up at me with the biggest smile, a tooth is missing.

“Oh, I can see someone lost a tooth.”

Nodding feverishly his hands move rapidly forming words. It takes me a moment to catch them out of practice. “So you lost it last night,” I smile, “Then someone should be expecting pearls in his socks come tomorrow.”

“That’s nothing! I lost three,” Cieland joins.

“While you’ll be a rich man, how?”

“I battled a beast. A boar of a bea-” His words get cut off in a yelp.

“You dare call me a boar?!”

“Haven’t yah looked in the mirror?!”

Two clean claps resonate in the room and everyone looks up at Mamá, “Now, now everyone. What is the best gesture you can ever show? One you can give for free, and surely will be given back to you.”

The two fighting kids grumble, before letting out the words simultaneously, “Kindness.”

“That’s right, and that is what we must show to each other, and to our sick guest in the Medicine room.”

She walks down the steps slowly towards the group of children looking at them with wise and loving eyes. “Now hurry along. Merideth will serve you supper. And if you can all do it without fighting we can have a night full of tales.”

They all listen without a doubt, running up the steps and gathering around the hearth where Merideth is serving each a pot of soup, and dipping roasted chicken within it. My stomach grumbles.

Grandmother comes to me and takes a look up and down. My heartbeat accelerates, but the smile she provides as a gift makes any worry vanish just like before, just like always. I close the distance between us and engulf her in a hug, not much different from what Argus did to me. Just like the house, she seems small, but her scent is the same. Soft, full of herbs, grass, and sunlight. Full of home.

She parts our embrace, and she looks at me with brown irises. Ones that are clouded and hold a light bluish rim around them. With wrinkles at the corner of the eyes, and tears that wish to overflow, but are held back by a smile right before she says, “My boy.”

“Hi, Mamá.”

“How you have grown.” Her hands grasp my upper arms firmly betraying how frail she looks. “So strong too, look at these nicely toned biceps.”

I laugh.

“I’m not that strong, Mamá.”

“Rubbish, you look as handsome as your father.”

I beam.

“Let’s get something into those muscles.”

She pulls me along up the stairs never letting go of my hand. And unlike the children, I have the honor of being served by grandmother herself.

We sit and talk as the children eat. Knowing very well that as soon as they’re done we’re gonna have to pause. She answers my every question regarding the village. How’s the harvest, how are the chickens, how is the market, how is the village weather fairing? I don’t want her to ask me about myself. Not now. Not yet.

Every bite I take from my meal is enough to keep me calm, but not enough to allow me to forget about the nerves that keep boiling up and settling down only when I am distracted. I am a knight, but the means by which I became a Knight. Were they truly wrong? I took what was rightfully owed to me. Nothing more and nothing less. I inhale deeply and let out the sigh filled with my worries. That’s right. I have nothing to fear.

“How about Old Man Forbes?”

She laughs, “The Lord of the village is well. Still not much of a lord and much more of...what does he call it again?”

I join in with a chuckle, “A scholar of the study of life and the realm.”

“Yes, that. There should be a word to describe such a sentence.”

“In one of the regions I visited they called it the art of life, a philosophy.”

“Yes, how have your adventures been?” Drat. “It’s not the same to read it from letters and to listen to them from you. You haven’t visited the village since you were fifteen after all.” The excitement shines in her eyes. “And where is Ser Willis?”

“Oh,” I bring a spoonful of soup to my mouth taking my time. “Since our next destination was south and Cieland was so close he told me to come home for a bit.”

“You alone?”

Another spoonful, with extra stuff to chew, “Yeah, we needed to relay a message to Lord Sigmund, and while it was dire it’s only a one-man job. And I mean,” I’ve run out of soup, “I have not been home in a while.”

“But Mávia isn’t very close. It’ll be a while before you reunite. Why-“

“We’re done eating Mamá!” The voice, coming from Cieland, interrupts my grandmother.

“Storytime,” Lily chimes in with a sing-tone voice.

I smile at the woman reassuringly as she begins to protest, “Don’t worry Mamá. I’ll check on our guest and help Meredith.”

Reluctantly she gives in. The frown she makes doesn’t last, as one of the children asks her to tell them the story of the giants. As she begins her tale I help Meredith in the kitchen.

“Sorry I haven’t greeted you properly Mer. How’ve you been?”

She stops collecting the pots and turns to me with a glare, “You’d know if you’d written back more often.” Out of the frying pan and into the flames.

“I was busy Mer. You know Willis, I can’t very well stop everything and write a letter. I wasn’t out adventuring, either. Every other month it was protecting someone or battling.”

“Please,” She finishes tossing the bowls into the dish bucket, “I’d hardly call Fighting off the Bulgueese a battle. More like a cock measuring contest.”

I glare at her, “Men and Women die every day protecting the realm from usurpers like the Bulgueese.”

She returns the glare, and the tears in her eyes catch me off guard, “You think I don’t know that?”

I frown, my eyes furrowed, “They died honorably. For their land.”

“It is not them I worry for.”

“Then for what?”

Her eyes roll, “An idiot boy I grew up loving.” Her hand reaches over grabbing and pulling on my cheek.

I protest waving her hand away. My hand rubs the stinging sensation, “Gods, I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Sure, sure, all who carry big swords suddenly have their nether region grow an inch or two.”

“No wonder you are not married yet.”

A cloth whips my face.

“Ow!”

She grabs the cloth and sets it inside a bowl with warm water. “Go take care of your guest, I’ll finish the kitchen.”

Cracking my jaw I do as such.