#hildspar

Starting his morning running all the way through the mountains of Goneril Territory was a good idea. Cardio was—is—important to any adventurer. To be able to outrun an enemy is as vital as the ability to continue to take hit after hit. It would get his blood pumping, heart going, and give him the right start to the day.

But starting his morning rudely awoken by the savage calls of hounds looking for some pejorative word to describe a man—that this author cannot repeat—for interfering on a bar brawl that got out of hand over some money.

Well, the no-good musician that Caspar had defended out of his undying sense of honesty and justice had skipped town, and the gang that had come to collect the bard and break his lyre over his head… or worse.

They came with wounded egos, wrapped knuckles and a score to settle.

So, as quickly as Caspar had set up camp, he dismantled it, but not before ducking deep into the grasses to avoid his assailants.

He’s reminded, as he almost eats up a mouthful of dirt with the force of throwing himself down, of a rumour he heard the night before. The night before, a bard in the tavern had strum a lyre and tunelessly sung a song about her.

He wasn’t a great bard, but hey, he kept Caspar entertained for as long as he stuck around. Though, as he tried not to move in feeble hopes—they’re all much taller than him and stockier—to get the drop on his assailants, he regretted defending the cheapskate.

He sees the heavy boots of a brigand just a few steps away. Either his attackers are blind or just stupid.

But when he smells alcohol, he realizes they’re drunk.

Not good… or is it? He thought.

Slowly, he rose and locked his elbow around the neck of one of his attackers. Just as quickly as he linked around, he was driven back into a tree. His head met the bark hard.

He keeps his elbow locked hard, kicking wildly as an ace flies from his attacker’s hands. He scarcely has a second before the others—three—are on him.

It passes in a blur and he’s able to get free but not without bruises and a good gash on the back of his head from hitting the tree. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he runs.

Soon, he comes to a secluded grove, overgrown with wheat. In the middle, built high and imposing is a tower. He beats his way through the reeds.

Behind him, he hears the gang grow closer.

Was that guy for real? He thinks. It couldn’t be.

The tower covered with ivy. The field of gold. The mountains that encircle it and then part for towards Goneril territory.

He must have hit his head hard.

His head aches. Sensing nowhere else to go and running out of options unless he wants to end up at the apothecary, Caspar lets out a low grumble.

“Fuck it…” He murmurs. “Hey! Anyone up there? I could use a hand!”

Silence.

“Listen, I’ve got gold and I’ll pay!”

(Not entirely true but it’s an emergency and he’ll always repay a debt.)

Still nothing.

“What is it, what’s the saying…” He grumbles to himself. In the distance, he can the gang’s voices grow louder. “I’ve heard it before, I swear… the guy said it…”

It comes to him.

“Let down your hair! Lend to me a golden stair!”

For a moment, nothing happens. His heart stutters in his chest, then as he’s about to turn away and hoof it towards Goneril territory, he sees something shoot into the air and cast a shadow over him.

He looks up, watching as a rope is thrown—no, is that actually hair? Well, regardless a rope is thrown down to his feet and beans him in the face on the way down. Pushes the rope out of his face, coughing as he chokes on threads and—

Is this… Hair? He grips the strands in shock. It’s soft pink, the same colour used for baby girls’ clothing and a bride’s flowers. The material—okay, seriously is this hair—is silky against his calloused palm. It’s glossy and smells good too.

No time to wonder. He thinks, wrapping the rope-hair-whatever-it-is around his hand and taking the first leap.  In all his years training for the military, Caspar’s become a resolved climber. Beanstalk or cliff slide scares him not. But the wound sustained to his head is starting take effect: he’s more than the slightest bit dizzy and wouldn’t mind sitting down for a sec. A nice nap sounds delightful right about now.

Despite the hair-rope being part hair—and as he falsely assumed, quite fragile—he makes his way up quite quickly. Halfway through a mixture of shimmying up and using the side of the tower to ascend, he realizes that the rope is moving itself. It’s being pulled.

He gets to the top, and then, greeted by perhaps the prettiest face he’s seen in all his travels, Caspar succumbs to rest… Right in the arms of a woman he’s never met.

—

“Well,” Hilda remarks to herself somewhat tiredly. “I’ve had worse introductions.”

Having a man almost plant face-first into her bosom is one of… well, the less savoury introductions. But it is one of the more amusing ones upon later reflection.

After a second of shock, she hears the bawdy calls of a group of men, coming through the forest and to the clearcut. Hilda grabs hold of the guest’s lapels, hauls him over the ledge and lets him slump, rather gracelessly, to the floor in a crumpled heap, ignoring the less-than-great sound he makes as he hits the floor of the tower.

She leans out the window, swipes up her hair, pulls it off the hook and shutters the tower. Sunlight seeps through the crack as Hilda listens in the dark, certain that no man can climb the tower, not without her hair. Still, it can’t hurt to listen to be sure. One hiccup in her afternoon is more than enough.

The man who had just made a happy acquaintance with the girls grumbles. Hilda sighs, pulls his head in her lap and pushes the hair from his face. Even in the darkness, she can see that he’s not necessarily bad looking. On the contrary, he’s cuter than most of the men in the little town just outside the grove’s limits. There’s a nick in his eye brow and he’s got a defined, sharp nose.

And his blood is trickling onto Hilda’s dress.

“Oh damn,” she grumbles, reaching for the nearest cloth. It’s one of her nicer handkerchiefs, but it will have to do. She dabs at his temple, his blood staining the soft pink. “Well, I guess there goes another one.”

He blinks once, twice, then looks up at her with clear blue eyes. His voice is not quite what she expected, a little squeaky, a little sharp.

“Heaven?” He asks.

Hilda laughs. “Not quite. It looks like you took a beating. Don’t worry, it’s all okay now. I’ve got you.”

“Hair…” he mumbles, shifting further into her lap. “So much hair.”

Hilda glances around the tower and smirks to herself. “Yeah, a lotta hair.”

It doesn’t take long to patch the traveller up. Dragging him to the chaise, however, is a much harder task. It wasn’t hard to pull him up the tower, because, obviously, he was helping a bit. He was climbing as she was pulling, so it was a group effort. But he’s all muscle and wears heavy armour.

Hilda knocks off a few pieces, pauldrons and gauntlets and what have yous until he’s down to his regular clothes. She pulls the blanket from her bed and spreads it out over his resting form.

She creeps close to the shutters and opens them. There’s nothing but footprints below, where the foxglove meets the clearcut and the tower blends into the mountains. There is a bag, she notices with her rather-sharp vision, down stashed by the little lake where she does her laundry. It must be his.

At half past six, she makes supper and he wakes again as she’s spooning out parsnip stew.

“Oh, hello there.” She greets and sits down at the edge of the chaise. “Glad to see you’re up.”

The traveller pauses, stares at her and drinks in her features. “Do… Do I know you?” He asks groggily.

“Well, you did think this was heaven, and called me an angel.”

He blushes bright red. Hilda giggles. “Don’t worry about that. But no, we don’t know each other actually. Can you remember anything?”

“Yeah.” He sits up and nods. “I was outrunning… Uh, some guys, they chased me to a dead end. There was this tower and a pink rope and…” He shakes his head. “I think I hit my head.”

“That you did.” Hilda says gesturing to her own temple.

He raises his hand and feels the bandage.

“I’m no physician, so there will probably be a scar, sorry.”

“Wait…” his eyes trail the floor, following the trailing length of her hair—along the hooks on the walls, from the bedroom, around the little kitchen, around the chaise several times, up her sightly frame and to the back of her head. “Is… Is that hair?”

She twirls a lock for emphasis. “Yep.”

“You’re sure.”

“Uh huh.”

“H…How?” He leans back against the chaise and shuts his eyes. “I think I really hit my head.”

“Listen, it’s real. It’s not extensions or anything.” She insists.

“But why…”

“We can discuss the why later. Who are you?”

“Oh, right.” He belatedly holds out his hand. “Caspar, of Bergeliez.”

“Bergeliez… That’s a territory in the Empire.” Hilda muses. “You’re far from home.”

He gives her a self-assured smile. “I’m a traveller, seeing the world. Leicester’s just the first stop.”

“Ah, a traveller. I like that.” Hilda says. “Live free sorta lifestyle.”

“Yep.” He says, pushing up from the chaise. “So I’d uh, best be going.”

He stares at the ground, trying to side step around her hair. The sight is astonishing, so long and so much of it.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” Hilda says. “I think hit your head pretty badly. You could have a concussion. It would be best to rest for a little bit.”

Caspar side eyes her. “That’s really kind of you, but I don’t uh, feel right intruding on a lady I don’t even know.” He murmurs.

“My name’s Hilda.”

“Hilda…” her name rolls off his lips. “Thanks for the save and the first aid, but like I said, I don’t feel right intruding.”

“I’ve gotta insist.” Hilda says, getting up. As she moves, so goes her hair, pulling and twisting all around the tower, like a viper curling up. “At least just the night, come on?”

He pauses for a second.

“You can leave tomorrow if you’ve gotta, I won’t stop you.” She promises, holding out her hand.

Caspar eyes it for a moment before pausing. “If I stay,” he says. “Will you tell me about… you know…”

“Over dinner, of course.” She laughs, lightening the mood. “Can’t expect a girl to drop all her secrets so easily.”

Caspar awkwardly laughs after her and shakes her hand. After, Hilda checks on the stew she’d made before this whole mess. It bubbles away and she serves two plates. He stares at the spot by the shutters, where she held his head in her lap an hour or so earlier. In a heap lies his armour, which she fixed while he rested.

She follows his eyes. “Oh, right, I fixed your armour.”

He gives her a confused look. “Really?”

“It’s not too far off from the stuff I do.”

He takes a cautious seat at the little table, usually meant for one. Hilda pulls the stool from her work desk close. “What do you do?”

“I make jewelry. Fixing clasps and hinges isn’t too far from the hinges on armour. But, I would take it to a blacksmith to be certain.”

“Thanks.” He says as she sets a bowl in front of him.

Hilda sits down with her own bowl, and Caspar’s yet to take a bite.

“I… What’s with the hair? And the tower? And the…” he gestures around him. “Everything, I guess? I feel like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole, or climbed the wrong tower, so to speak.”

“Oh.” Hilda glances around the tower, her hair rippling as she does. “It’s a bit of a story.”

He stares at her in earnest.

She blinks twice and then parts her lips in an exaggerated oh, “You actually want me to tell it?”

“Well, yeah.”

Hilda grumbles and resigns herself to telling this story. It takes close to an hour. They finish their meal, indulge in little chocolate strawberry truffles which Hilda serves from a cranberry glass dish, then return to the chaise. By then, the sun has completely abandoned the tower. The little hearth is lit and they pull the chaise near to be warm. Caspar paces the floor, side-stepping her strewn hair cautiously. After a tense moment of reflection, he speaks:

“So, let me get this straight…” He says quietly.  “You locked yourself in this tower, by your own choice, because you wanted to be alone?”

“Well, not exactly.” Hilda says, stretching out on the chaise. “My brother—bless his heart—kept talking and talking about how good and perfect I am. People at court kept coming to me with tasks. Singing, sewing, socializing, the works, right? It got tiring real quick.”

Caspar holds her gaze as she turns her eyes from from the ceiling to him. “I heard about this place a long time ago. It was a bedtime story that my parents used to tell me; a princess was locked in here, hidden from the world, waiting for her knight in shining armour.” She explains. “So I thought, why not make it real?”

“Yeah, there’s a song about it now.” Caspar grumbles. “Jerk got me into this mess…”

“Whoa, I have my own song?!” Hilda says in awe. “That’s sorta cool.”

“But your…” His eyes move to the floor and trace the labyrinthine trails of pink. “Your hair. That’s not normal. Right?”

“Why?” Hilda asks, sitting up. “Never saw a girl with really long hair?”

“Well, yes,” he backtracks before shaking his head. “But not that long! That’s like over a couple feet.”

“It’s actually twenty.”

“Twenty?” He gapes.

Hilda nods. “Okay, maybe I forgot to admit that I’m sorta, kinda, maybe under a curse. More like a spell.”

“That would’ve been good to know.” He backtracks yet again. “Wait, how’d you even get up here?”

She glances around the tower. “What, like it’s hard?’

“I mean, you said yourself that all you do it lounge around and make jewelry.”

“Okay, that’s a half-truth.” Hilda says. “I can do stuff myself. I go to the local market and trade my goods and everything. How do you think I maintain such a high standard of living? Bartering and selling, duh.” She adds, “There’s a little lake nearby that for laundry and bathing even. I’m quite self-sufficient.”

The latter doesn’t phase him like she expect it would. Caspar only presses further, shaking his head. “That doesn’t explain how you got up here.”

“Listen, when I want something, I will get it for myself.” She explains. “I just don’t want to have to! A friend and his wyvern helped me up here, then I figured out how to use my hair as a rope. Installed the hook myself.”

Under her breath, she adds, “And there’s an emergency staircase.”

Caspar sparks with annoyance. “So I climbed the wall for nothing?!”

She smiles to herself. “Oh, not for nothing.” She hums. “It’s overgrown and not exactly accessible…”

“But Hilda, how can you like it up here? Don’t you get lonely?”

“Not really.” Hilda says. “I have my gossip columns and my jewelry stuff and my books. I love to read.”

“What about that curse, then?”

“Oh, right.” A frown crosses her lips. “So, I was had the worst craving for a salad—and before you get on my case, I know it was wrong—but I snagged it from a neighbour in the forest. Again, I know it was wrong. Before I could pay her or apologize, she cursed me!”

“With?”

“The hair.”

“Oh right.” He scoffs. “Some curse.”

“Yeah, it’s annoying. Maintaining this? Not fun.” She sighs and points to her ever-stretching hair. “So, the witch cursed my hair to grow forever long. If I cut it, it grows back longer. It’s best to let it be.”

“How does it hinder you?”

“Uh, every way, duh?” She points to his head. “You keep your hair short for a reason, yeah?”

He nods. “It’s annoying.”

“Exactly the same here. It’s annoying. When I go to the market, I spend close to an hour tying it up.”

“Can you break it?”

“Break what?” Hilda sits up, pulling her hair. Caspar sidesteps the strands. “Breakage would be worse than regrowth!”

“What? No, I meant the curse.”

“Oh.” She pauses and thinks on it. “I mean, I’m sure there’s a way, but honestly, I can’t be bothered.”

“Well there has to be way. I’ll help you.”

“Help me?”

“Yeah, and maybe we can get you out of this tower and outside for real!” He said. “Besides, there’s a certain minstrel I’d like to give a stern talking to…”

Hilda sighs. “I told you, I’m not interested in being told what to do.”

Caspar shakes his head. “Well, abandon the title. You already did that, right?”

Hilda pauses and thinks on it. “Huh. Y’know, I guess you’re sorta right.”

“Abandon the title and go exploring or something.”

“Exploring?”

“Yeah! Do what you want! You’ve got a load of coin from selling all that jewelry, right? Why not spend it on a world-class adventure! The world’s your oyster.”

Hilda eases back. “Okay, maybe you’ve got a point.” She says. “From what you’ve told me about the world outside Leicester, it seems… It seems like it’s worth seeing, I guess.”

“You could come with me, if you wanted.” He offers.

“Where are you going?”

Caspar sighed happily. “Everywhere. But first, I got a score to settle.”

“Oh with those guys you were outrunning?” She asks.

“What? No. This guy,” he explains as Hilda inches closer.  “I defended him last night—he was this skinny little bard with ginger hair and a tinny voice—and the guys who were threatening him came after me. Somethin’ about a debt.”

“Oh. So you’re a wandering do-gooder?” Hilda sidles up beside him and flutters her lashes.

Caspar, oblivious, shakes his head. “I just got a strong sense of justice.” He insists. “After I give that guy a stern talkin’ to, I’m gonna head out to Gloucester and see Edgaria. Apparently they’ve got a great food capital.”

Hilda murmurs, “Oh they do.” Then she says, “You know what Caspar, I think I’ll go with you. It sounds like some adventure.”

“Really?” He brightens happily. “Glad to hear it Hilda!”

The two settled in for the night, settling the details to the morning. When dawn broke, Hilda decides what she would take while Caspar watched.

“You know you could stand to pack less luggage.” Caspar observes over a bowl of soggy oatmeal.

“And you could stand to eat with your mouth closed.” Hilda shot back and she attempts to repack her bags for the fourth time within the last twenty minutes.

Swallowing his spoonful, Caspar says, “Travellers tend to pack light.”

“I have creature comforts that I can’t let go of!” She says before glancing at a bottle of expensive perfume and adding, “though, I guess you’re right, I could stand to drop a few items.”

“We’ll come back.” He promises her.

Hilda smiles a little before dropping off a few more items—mostly clothes and keepsakes—and leaving them behind.

“Oh! And this!” Hilda says, running into her bedroom. She returns, carrying a massive axe that dwarfs her in size.

Caspar goes pale in it’s shadow. “W-What is that?”

“A gift from my brother. It’s name is Freikugel!”

Beneath his breath, Caspar whispers, “Your brother sounds so cool.”

Hilda hauls the axe back, then sends it flying towards the ground. It lands in the earth with a thunk!, then she casts down her luggage with his help and it lands at the base of the tower. Hilda loops her hair up and looks at Caspar. “Shall we?”

“How…”

“You’ll climb down, and I’ll scale down after. It should work, I hope it does at least.” She smirks. “Or else you’ll be taking care of me!”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I’m a lousy medic.”

They shut up the shutters and block them with rods so that no one may enter. Then, after Hilda helps lower Caspar to the ground below, Hilda climbs into the window seat of the tower.

Caspar watches as she says a melancholy goodbye to her home, then pulls the shutters, latches them and turns back. She loops her hair around and beneath her to act as a seat and then with all her strength lowers herself—

Until her hair gives out and she’s falling.

He dives, catching her. She lands, safely, in his arms. They hold each other’s gazes for a moment and Caspar feels his face heat. Hilda laughs a little, then hops out of his arm, strapping her axe to her back. She walked on, her hair dragging through the golden fields behind her.

“You coming?” She called back.

Caspar swiped up Freikugel and grinned. “‘Course I am!”