Meant To Be

He knew who he was. He had seen this boy many times before, so it was not a surprise to see him wandering round the garden, lost and so alone.

The young boy could only have been about five years old, but he did not worry for him. He knew his parents very well and he knew that very soon he would find his way back home. Yet the child did not see the knight straight away. The man stood hidden by the drooping bowers of the Nulav trees, watching the boy trundle across the finely cut lawn examining the many coloured flowers and bushes with a mixture of wondrous amazement and fear.

The child wasn’t supposed to be here, not really, but all he could do was make sure that he was greeted appropriately and his fears put to rest. So he waited until the right moment, when the boy caught his thin white tunic on a thorn of one of the bushes, to come out of hiding.

“You boy…”

At the sound and sight of this towering man, the five year old began to panic. He pulled and tugged in desperation to break free, his actions only ripping his shirt in the process. He was crying now, sobbing and shaking as the armour clad man approached.

“It’s all right…I’m not going to tell you off.”

The knight walked up to the child slowly and with his hands held out before him, yet still the boy was panicking. The smile that man produced calmed the five year old a little and he stopped backing away when the knight knelt down before him.

“You are not injured?” He asked. The boy shook his head, clasped at his ripped shirt, whilst small choking sobs came through his tightly closed mouth. “Tis only a small tear. Easily mended.”

The little boy finally stopped shaking and looked directly into the Knight’s eyes. There was an immediate recognition staring back at him and the boy’s shaking vanished. Carefully clutching at the snagging bush, he broke the boy and his shirt free. As soon as he did so, the child sagged down onto the grass and crossed his legs. Shaking.

“Where am I?” he asked, his eyes flicking with fear at his strange surroundings.

“This is the garden of the Lady Amalia.” said the Knight. “Does it frighten you?”

The boy nodded.

“A little. I did not know that such a place could…be real.”

The man smiled and finally sat down next to the boy. The two of them looked at each other for a while, trying to gain a sense of who the other was, but that wasn’t entirely necessary. There was a connection already.

“Beautiful…is it not?” asked the Knight, smiling gently.

“It is, nothing like where I live…but…I can’t find my way home!”

It looked as if the boy would start crying again, but the knight rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder with a supportive squeeze.

“I will show you the way. It is not far, so do not worry yourself.”

The boy nodded his head and nervously tugged at some of the grass, ripping the short lush green blades with his fingers. The knight smiled as he knew what the groundskeeper would say to such disregard to a well tended lawn.

“Am I going to be in trouble?” asked the boy after a few moments of lingering silence.

“No, child. You will not.”

The boy appeared to be more at ease with such comforting words, yet he was still nervous, no doubt being so far from his parents. He then closed his eyes and gently pulled a couple of blades of grass. Instead of throwing them away like the last fistful, he held them to his nose and breathed in their scent. He held that scent in for a moment, lost in a different world, so distant and strange.

“Will the Lady Amalia be angry, knowing that I am in her garden?” he asked at last.

The knight shook his head, an action that seemed to make the boy frown with quizzical astonishment.

“She would not object to your presence. After a while.” said the man “In fact, I think she would welcome a visitor such as you.”

This cheered the young boy up. A huge hopeful smile beamed across his tear soddened face and his eyes lit up with joy. It seemed that he needed a friend, for the knight could see such loneliness in his gaze and he knew what that felt like. It was terrible being on ones own.

“She is here.” he said. “Hiding I should imagine.”

He looked around the vast garden and carefully watched for any signs of movement in the bushes. There was only but the breeze of the wind, gently swaying the foliage, yet as the Knight went to talk to the boy again, something caught his eye.

Just by the tree he himself had hidden behind, there was a rustle by the rose hedges that lined the garden. It was clear that she had been hiding here.

“I know you are there, my lady.” he called out in his loud booming voice. There was a girlish snarl and such a sound made the five year old boy smirk in intrigue. “You can come out, the game is lost.”

“No!” came the determined response from the hedge. The knight sighed but he winked to the boy. “I win! I always win!”

The laugh from the knight made the girl‘s snideful mutterings increase. There were some brief angry mutterings before everything became silent. He waited for a good few minutes, with his head tilted to the side, listening for any slight sound.

“She will come out when she’s ready.” he chuckled softly. “But I would think she would like to meet you.”

“She would? Really?”

“Aye. She is your age and would be glad of a friend.”

The boy’s eyes swelled wide and watered with glistening tears.

“Though…I would make a suggestion, child.”

“Oh?”

“Your family is well known to hers, they are honourable and devoted in their service to her ladyship.”

“You do?” stammered the boy. “We are…were? I mean…”

The Knight held up his hand to silence the boy‘s yammerings. For a moment, the tall knight just sat there, lost in his own thoughts or rather trying to remember something long forgotten.

Then he leaned close to the young child and whispered something in his ear. At first the boy was confused, but then when he saw the young girl finally emerge from the hedge, he understood.

The boy got to his feet, clutching at his ripped shirt as the young girl approached him with trepidation. She was wearing a dress of sky blue, but it was a little ripped and mud caked the torn hem. Her blonde hair was a mess, hardly blonde at all from the mud and the ribbon that wrapped around her head was fraying and slipping down.

“Knight….who is this?” she demanded when she stood facing the little boy. Her guardian still sat on the grass between them trying hard not to smile. “I thought I said no one else was to come to my garden!”

“You would send away a visitor, milady?” he asked.

“I never wanted any one here! I don’t need anyone else here, but you! Send him away!”

The knight bowed and shook his head.

“That is not wise, my lady. He is lost and cannot find his way home. Surely you would not mind the presence of someone your own age?”

“I do not have to do anything with…”

“My lady…you would send him away? Frightened and alone?”

The little girl pouted and folded her arms across her chest. The stern and very regal anger on her face showed that she wanted nothing. She needed nothing. But her guardian knew better. He knew her too well and could see the despair that was trying to be hidden within.

“My lady…” his voice took on a stern and authoritive tone that made her pout turn to shame. Her arms slipped down to her sides and she sighed.

“Are you good at games?” she asked the boy, wiping her face with her sleeve and then placing her hands on her hips. The boy wasn’t sure, he turned to the knight for confirmation who just nodded.

“Erm..aye…” said the boy mimicking the knight.

“Aye?!” The girl frowned, unsatisfied with the response.

“My lady?”

The boy bowed courteously which amused the little girl immensely. She smiled a sly grin and then held out one hand, palm down.

“You may rise.” she commanded, the words sounding more from the nose than her mouth. The boy did as he was told. “I welcome you to my garden. It’s my secret and no one else knows of this, besides my guardian. Do you promise to keep this secret safe?”

“I….” The boy just nodded his head and took hold of her hand. “I do.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“May the Yensa peck at you if you tell any other living soul!”

“I won’t tell anyone, my lady!” The boy pressed his forefinger and thumb together and held them to his lips. Then he dragged them across his mouth as if an imaginary zipper was closing it.

The girl gripped his hand tightly, an unusual and startling reaction for the young lady, and immediately the two five year old children shook hands with a strange new hope.

“I am the lady Amalia.” said the girl, pushing her ribbon back into her hair and then brushing her fringe from her face. “But you can call me Amalia, when I say you can.”

Their hands slipped away, but slowly and almost as if they didn’t really want to let go. There was a connection, despite Amalia’s hesitancy. Deep down, there was a desire for friendship that neither of them had had in the span of their short lives.

“I am Coren.” said the boy, bowing his head and scuffing his feet gently at the lawn.

Amalia contemplated taking up his hand again, she struggled to be dignified as the lady she should be with the desperate childish need to be impulsive.

“Do you play hide and seek?” she whispered eventually.

Coren’s head nodded in a sudden and furious bob. Then, to the knight’s delight, the young girl responded with an elated squeal. A rare smile, not seen for months spread on her lips and Amalia ran off so fast to the depths of the garden. Coren scampered over to the Nulav tree, he rested his arms against the willowy trunk and then pressed his face against his arms. He began to count, loudly.

The sounds of chuckling laughter now reverberated around the garden. Two lonely children had formed a new friendship, giving each other the life they had so desperately needed.

Basch Fon Ronsenberg rose to his feet and watched as the princess of Dalmasca finally became alive. For the first time since her mother’s death, she was interacting, she was happy.

But he knew, just what it would become.