9 Chapter 9 : The Tragic Backstory™

The River Watcher raised an eyebrow as he saw me pore over the map and check my compass.

"What are you doing?"

"Figuring out the optimal path to search the Hen's Teeth for the Rainbow Bridge. I'm thinking we should start here and go west along the lower ridges-" I traced along the map with my finger.

"I don't mean to interrupt your majesty but, why would we need to do that?" He asked, amused.

"Why?" I snorted and answered him absentmindedly, "Because I don't know where exactly the Rainbow Bridge is. This map isn't exactly, well, exact." I tapped the map.

He snickered a little, snuffing his chuckle behind his hands.

"Or you could ask me?"

Huh?

I turned to look at him and he shrugged.

"I AM a native of this land."

Oh.

Oh man.

It was so obvious. How did I miss it?

"I feel so stupid." I facepalmed, flushed with embarrassment and he just laughed harder.

"Shall I?" He asked.

"Yes, please." I gestured at him to lead the way, putting my map away.

"Follow me." He huffed with pride and marched ahead when I noticed the direction he was going.

I frowned and got ready to fight if need be as I asked.

"Wait, weren't the Hen's Teeth southwest? Why are we going North?"

He stopped and turned back, tilting his head.

"Do you know how far the Hen's Teeth are?"

"Hm? I don't know, a day?" I guessed.

"By royal carriage perhaps." He scoffed, and continued as I followed him, leading us past a thicket and over a little creek, the only bridge across it being a fallen oak log, "On foot, it's three days, and then there is the trek up the mountains, which will take another half a day."

"You sound like you know another way." I asked, and he grinned, swatting a stray branch away, as we came upon a ramshackle cabin in the woods, straight out of a horror movie.

You can tell a lot about a person from how they live and this place was sending me real mixed signals.

On the one one hand, it was relatively clean, for a ghetto medieval bachelor pad at least. There wasn't much trash, only stray leaves and vines, and that pile of wine bottles, in the corner of the clearing. I'm guessing that's where the hundred gold went.

On the other hand, it wasn't exactly what you'd call a decent living standard.

Rotten boards and collapsed windows, roof overgrown with vines and foliage, the once decent baked clay roof tiles now cracked and patched in with thatch. It probably floods in the monsoon too, I'll bet.

To the side, a shoddy kitchen poked out, covered with a leather tarp, held up with thin sticks stuck into the ground.

Beneath it, a dirty, cracked pot hung over a small, still warm fireplace, silent embers glowing beneath the ash.

Clearly, the place had seen better days. And for some unknown reason, probably the proximity to the river, the whole place was uncomfortably moist.

The living conditions were just abysmal.

Damn bitch, you live like this?

I felt dirty just looking at it.

"Your house?" I couldn't help but ask the obvious question.

He nodded.

"And my boat." He displayed proudly.

I followed his gaze and found a stream some ways from the cabin, and on the muddy shores of the stream, a rickety, old boat that looked like it would fall apart against the slightest wave.

Is this even safe?

I sighed.

My man, that is nothing to be proud of. Your living conditions alone....

I shook my head softly.

None of my business how he wants to live his life.

I am curious how he got to this point though....

"Come, help me get the boat into the water. This will get us to the base of the mountains by nightfall." He called me and I got to it, grabbing one side of the boat.

"On my word, push!" He exclaimed, as we pressed against the sides of the boat, scraping it along the mud, sweating from the weight and then with splash, dumping it into the river.

I watched the River Watcher cast a spell on the boat to make it row on it's own as he got in.

"Get in, your majesty!" He called out and hopped in as I rushed to follow after him, the boat already beginning to move.

"Hup!" I dashed across the bank and leapt into the boat, rocking it with my descent, grabbing onto the sides for balance when I felt something prick my hand.

"Tss!" I hissed, pulling out a splinter that had dug into my thumb.

Stupid boat!

"You're bleeding, your majesty." He pulled out a bottle from his pouch, "I have just the right thing for it. A very reasonable 15 gold, just for you!"

You never stop hustling, do you?

"No thank you." I refused and put a bandage on it from my own medkit.

I don't want to be in debt here. If I knew one thing about Fillory, it was that it and it's people only look whimsical. That whimsy hides a deeper, darker edge to the world that often goes unseen at first glance. Fundamental principles of living in such a world, and dealing with its inhabitants were simple. Don't forget to be polite. Keep everything at an arm's length. And remember, everything here comes at a price. Even a basic meet and greet.

It was basically Disneyland rules but instead of getting thrown out by security for squeezing Cinderella's phat ass, you got mauled by giant turtles, turned into living juice boxes by bird sniping, parasitic squid or enslaved by the many witches and magical entities lurking around every corner to be their personal chew toy.

Not the end I want for myself.

"Your loss." He huffed, and put the salve back into his pouch.

For a moment there was silence as we sailed down the river, enjoying the scenery. The river was a beautiful sight, all sorts of flowers growing on its banks, sharply dressed deer and gentlemanly horses with bowler hats coming to drink from it as they had little chats with the walking tree folk.

It was like a fantasy version of a safari.

I smiled.

Where else could I get to see pug in matching purple vests having a picnic, within a circle of roses?

How cute and romantic! And was that dog-

Oh my god, it was proposing to its lover with a collar made of bone- a collarbone if you will.

What a precious sight!

I squeaked happily as I resisted the urge to take a picture with my phone.

I wonder, do they say, 'Will you be my bitch, in sickness and health, till death do us part?' around here.

Would it be racist? Species-ist? To ask that?

"Don't stare." The River Watcher grabbed my shoulder, "It draws attention."

Oh.

"Right. Right. Ahehem." I cleared my throat, and looked away after stealing one last glance at the two kissing pugs.

Adorable!

Again, the journey became awkward, an uncomfortable silence reigning between us as I hummed the familiar tune of the Lord Of The Rings theme.

An epic journey in a fantasy land, across a mighty river, with a wizard for a companion. What a dream~

Now if only the wizard was less Radagast and more Gandalf....

That reminds me.....

"Say uh, River Watcher, what's your real name? I can't just keep calling you River Watcher the whole time, can I?"

"You can. I prefer it." He deflected with a smile.

Okay. Very mysterious.

"Alright, if you insist." I gave in, "So River Watcher, I mean no offense but I'm curious. Why do you live in that shack?" I asked, trying to fish for his Tragic Backstory™.

The curiosity was killing me. So was the boredom. A day long boat ride without the modern amenities of the internet make for a mind-numbingly boring experience.

"You seem like an accomplished magician. Shouldn't you be able to get a better one, or just magic your existing one into a proper cabin? You can't possibly like living in such- and again, I mean no offense- squalor."

He suddenly looked like he'd swallowed a thousand bugs and turned away.

"It's..." He hesitated, "It's a long story. A long, dull tale."

Uh huh?

"Well, I have all day and no matter how dull the tale, I can't exactly fall asleep on the boat." I smiled, leaning closer to him, "And I promise, between you and me, I'll make no judgements."

"You...." He sighed and looked up into the sky, groaning, "Very well. As you wish, your majesty."

"As you said, I....was an accomplished magician. The best in the land. I was the court magician to High Queen Chen-Li The Bookish, 300 years ago. It was a time of great peril and equally great adventure; and I was at the forefront of it all." His eyes twinkled with a glory long lost as he spoke, and flooded with a deep nostalgia for times gone by, "We were at war with the fairies then. Invaders, those wretched things." He spat with virulent hatred, "They came from beyond this realm, Gods-knows-where, some dark, shadowy abyss even gods refused to spit on, I reckon. They ravaged the lands, wreaked havoc in the palace, killed the High King and Council, and then had the gall to call it 'mischief'."

He clutched his fists, twitching with rage as he recalled it, his eyes glossed over in a thousand yard stare.

Mf was having Vietnam flashbacks.

"I had a name back then. More than just a name. A family."

"What happened?" I pushed him along.

"Fairies. They brought us to heel within the week. One horrid, horrid week that scarred Fillory forever."

"Scarred?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Do you know of the Slosh, North of Corian's Land?"

I pulled out the map, and found the place.

"Yes, the swampland south of the Darkling Woods." I nodded.

"It used to be a fertile plain."

Excuse me, what?!

I took a second look at the map and checked the size of the thing.

It was....huge.

"Are you saying the fairies turned a fertile plain into a swamp within a week?"

That was some major terraforming shit.

"No." He shook his head, "They did it in four hours."

"Holy fuck." I muttered.

Note to self, do not fuck with the fairies. They were onto some General Zod shit.

But a question arose.

"If they were so powerful, how come they aren't the ones ruling Fillory. I mean of course, not directly- Ember and Umber wouldn't allow that- but, from the shadows at least?"

I need to know how they beat them back. Fairies are too powerful, too weird. Too much of a wild card.

While I knew what they wanted in general, I didn't KNOW them.

While I knew what their powers were, the sheer scale of them was unknown to me till just now.

They're one card I'll have to swipe off the table first chance I get.

"Because we found a way to defeat them." He said, leaning back as he let out a breath through clenched teeth,

"It was a week into their rule, and they had puppeteered the royal court, making outrageous, obtuse, obscure demands and if we didn't fulfill them...." He opened his mouth to reveal eight of his teeth missing.

I'm guessing they didn't just naturally fall out.

"They'd take something from us. The High Queen lost both her eyes and three of her toes. But we held onto our fighting spirits. There was still hope, we were sure. There was news from our spies, of distant lands rich with a particular white stone. It was chalky and brittle, and all but useless, except for one thing. It was poisonous to the fairies. They withered at the mere touch of it. Or so we were told.

So the High Queen had us set sail, under the pretense of a mining operation to bring more wealth to the lands. A grand expedition in front of the public eye, but behind closed doors, we had one goal. To bring back enough stone to kill them all.

It took three months of planning, all the while we were held hostage in our own homes, each action, each thought watched and tailed by unseen eyes, always one step from disaster, one step ahead of death. Until finally, we set sail, all the way across the Shivering Sea, to the faraway isle, to meet our man, and his pile, ready for harvest. We weren't alone, the Fairy Queen planted minders on all of us, but we were prepared. We thought we were getting ahead of her." He shivered as he recalled it,

"We thought wrong. They knew it all, each step, each carefully thought out plan. They caught us red handed at the Cape. Held us at spear point. Then came the torture. The....pain" He hugged his arm, gripping it with such force it began to tear his sleeve at the seams "....it seared itself into my very soul. To this day, I can feel it....just the thought-" His voice cracked, his breathing grew heavy and labored.

"Hey! Hey!" I patted him but it was of no avail.

"I begged them. I begged them, I.... I'm not a traitor, I'm not-" He bent over, tapping his feet with increasing frequency, "My wife....she was with child and they..... They...."

"River Watcher?" I called out to him but to no avail.

He kept muttering as glowing symbols began appearing around his forehead, shimmering with a burning light, barely contained power, and then-

Fwwwzhh!

It exploded out with a blinding light, my eyes singing from exposure. It was nearly a minute before I could see again, my eyes still hurt like a bitch and the River Watcher sat dazed there for a moment. I almost thought he was dead or something, but then, he suddenly jerked, his eyes shot open and he began to cough like an asthmatic, shaking the whole boat.

"River Watcher? Are you there?" I held onto the boat with one hand as I snapped my fingers before him.

"Yes." He groaned, "Yes. I am. I...My apologies. I have shown you-"

"Hey, don't worry about it." I stopped him, "I promised, no judgement. I'm a man of my word." I lied.

Well, I messed up, so I might as well use it to my advantage.

What better way to gain his trust than to be kind to him in his lowest moment?

Still, that outburst explains so much.

The drinking, that hobo shack, the hustling.

River Watcher is a homeless veteran with severe PTSD and whatever that Age Suspension magic is doing is keeping it at bay. I'm guessing it lobotomizes him everytime his sanity slips, keeping him up and in the game.

And the Age Suspension magic heals him back to perfect health.

Masterful spellwork too, I must say. In the show, even expert magicians had trouble making Age Suspension magic work.

Which meant, now I had two specimens of that type to sell.

I grinned inside.

Change of plans. I'm not killing him anymore. That would be missing out on so much profit.

So much profit.

I was going to make bank selling those two to the highest bidder.

He smiled a little and coughed to clear the air. Or maybe.....I could research it myself and kill him anyway to keep the value of the other product high. After all, the rarer something is, the more people are willing to pay for it. So only selling Plover while experimenting on and killing the River Watcher would theoretically net me the most amount of profit. And if need be, I can always recreate the spell on a homunculus, once I learn how to make it.

So many possibilities...

But that is for later.

"Look at me rambling." He laughed awkwardly, "My age gets to me sometimes."

"No, no. I shouldn't have pried." I shook my head, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." He assured me, "It's just the tremors. A lack of moral fiber."

That is some lame ass WW1 era excuse.

Lack of moral fiber, my ass.

Though, now that I think about it, this is a weird fantasy world. I wouldn't be surprised if moral fiber was an actual thing here, like a food or something.

I chuckled.

"Is moral fiber a thing here? Or is it a metaphor?" I asked.

"It is both." He took out a bottle of pills from his pouch and popped one into his mouth.

"This is concentrated moral fiber. Made it myself. Great quality and for just a-"

"I swear if you try to shill your pills to me one more time I will throw you overboard." I joked.

He laughed.

"I shan't then." He agreed, "I shan't."

Again we sat in silence for a moment, only the churning and bubbling of the river beneath us punctuating the pause.

Then he spoke.

"Even after all that, I must admit..."

Hm? My ears perked up.

"I do not regret my actions. Not once. If I could go back to that day and face the same dilemma, I would make that same choice, a thousand times over." He said, more to himself than to me but I could understand the feeling behind it.

"To be able to see my son again, I would give up more than just my name and wealth. I would give up everything."

"Where is your son now?" I asked as tenderly as I could.

"He died, 240 years ago." He gave me a sad smile.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"Do not feel sorry. I barely remember his face now. After..."

"After temporarily lobomtomizing yourself so many times?" I supplied.

"I don't know what that means." He tilted his head in confusion.

Right.

Lobotomy is a modern procedure and whatever magical equivalent he shoved into his Age Suspension magic is probably primitive at best.

"But I get the gist. The spell, it keeps me sane and alive. I made it then so I couldn't kill myself, so I could be there for my son as he grew up. But now, so, so many years later.....it is just another curse on my tainted soul."

"Eh, don't beat yourself up over it. Moral fiber is overrated anyways." I shrugged.

He laughed.

"Those are just the effects of the pill. I tend to get poetic when I take it."

"Damn, I'm going to get me some too..." I joked, and he began to reach for his pouch when I raised a hand to stop him.

"When I have the money for them." I added.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance and I smiled, humming the familiar Shire tune as we floated along on our merry way.

____________________

A little late cuz exams and all. Wish me luck for tomorrow!

Okay, so a little off topic, but it does give a backstory to the River Watcher since I decided against outright killing him. Mostly cuz it wouldn't make sense for MC to beat a magician as powerful as the River Watcher like any common mook.

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