The Disappointment Room

a/n: The characters and the world they inhabit in the piece below are from a novel I've attempted to write on and off since 2008 (!). I never ended up publishing the rough draft or did anything with it, but the characters have always stayed in my head and a couple of them spun their own stories in my brain, outside of what I'd originally written for them. This takes place long before the story I wrote, and is my imagining of how two of them - Vagran, a king's eldest, sickly son and Elnore, the bastard daughter of the same king, met. In the original work I allude to these two characters having been friends as children (though their adult relationship is a little more complex and bitter) and I always wanted to imagine that first moment of meeting. This challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to do so!

Elnore was in the kitchens of the High Tower, pounding a tart into submission when she knocked over a giant bowl of freshly sifted flour by her right elbow. Meredith, who usually allowed the ten-year-old girl to hang around and ‘help’, perhaps out of pity, exploded in a way that was uncharacteristic for the matronly head chef.

"Child, don't you have something to do?" she'd snapped. "Can you not go play like the others?"

That had stung a little, as Meredith knew full well there were no others, none who wanted to play with the dark little bastard girl, anyhow. Elnore, standing, pushing tears back from her eyes, could see that right after saying the words, the older woman felt bad.

"Here," Meredith said gently, after a while in which she seemed to consider. "One last thing you could do if you'd like to help. Take this to the cellar, third door on the left." She handed Elnore a small bowl of lukewarm broth next to a crusty heel of bread. "If he gives you any trouble, just leave. And take whatever plates are left down there, will you?"

Elnore stared at her, curiosity aroused. 'Who?'

'The king's son, now go."

Meredith turned her gently for the door and shooed her away. The king's son? What was Lorcan Saronis doing in the cellar, and since when was she allowed to wait on him? Head swimming, she tread the steps carefully, making sure not to spill a drop of the broth, which gave off a distasteful smell like a dirty sock. As she got closer to the door in question, she slowed down even further, frowning. There was a sound coming from behind it, a sniffing, breathless sort of sound. Was Lorcan crying? She paused, and, transferring her load to one hand, knocked. Immediately, the noise stopped, leaving her in silence. "Hello?" she called.

"Go away," a voice snapped from beyond the door. Though it sounded annoyed, it was scratchy and weak, and she had to strain to make out the words.

"I can't," Elnore said, "I'm supposed to give this to you." When she received no response, she turned the knob and pushed the door open.

The room before her was tiny and barren, but for an old desk and an uncomfortable-looking cot. There was one little window that opened up just above-ground, crowded with grime so that she couldn't see much but grass and weeds crowding up against the misty pane. In the cot sat a boy, propped up by a couple of stained pillows.

Threadbare blankets covered his lap to his waist. It was impossible to say how old he was, but Elnore would have guessed maybe 5, half of her age. He was very small and painfully thin, and when she moved to the side of his bed she noticed a faint rattling in his hollow chest as he breathed. The boy glared at her the whole time like he was sizing up a foe, his eyes pale green slits of venom in their hollow sockets. She couldn't help but notice that those sunken eyes were red and raw around the edges.

"Put it there and get out," he said, lifting an arm from beneath the blankets and pointing to a table beside him on which sat another bowl of the same stuff, congealed and full nearly to the top, a piece of soggy bread dissolving in the cloudy broth. Elnore walked to the table obediently and put down the bowl. She hesitated, unsure whether to pick up the previous, uneaten portion. As she deliberated, the last ray of weak sunlight vanished from the room, leaving them in bleak, chilly silence.

"I'm sorry, but I heard you crying-" she began.

"Crying?" the boy snapped. "I was not crying."

He glared at her like a territorial, unsociable animal. His arms were bone thin and covered in bandages, some of which had dull brown or red staining seeping through. On the underside of one elbow, a large bruise marked his sickly pale skin. Elnore wondered uneasily if he was dying. She'd never seen someone so frail in her life.

"Who are you?" she asked, “Meredith said this was for the king’s son, but-"

"I am his son,” the boy snapped, his face darkening. His skinny fists clenched in his sheets.

'But..' she was at a loss. She’d seen Lorcan Saronis, the heir to the throne. Lorcan was a healthy, dark-haired boy with a crooked grin playing about his mouth. This boy's overgrown hair looked as pale and lifeless as his skin and his face looked like it had never seen a smile. “…What’s your name, then?”

"Don't they tell you anything?" At her blank look, he made a light huff of contempt, a hand going to his chest at the same time to stifle a cough. When she only looked at him, he said, "Vagran Saronis. Who're you supposed to be, the new nurse? Don't you think...you're awful young?"

"Look who's talking," she said teasingly. The boy did not seem to appreciate this at all. Those intense green eyes narrowed further.

"I'm eight,” he said coldly. Elnore was so momentarily shocked she almost dropped the tray- she would never have guessed from the looks of him.

“I didn’t even know Lorcan had a brother.” An elder brother, at that, she realized, for Lorcan was only seven.

The boy only glowered at her. His cheekbones were sharp under pallid skin that seemed stretched to breaking. A faint, ugly flush rose there at the mention of Lorcan.

"Who sent you here anyway?" he asked. "I've never seen you before. The last one quit already, did she?" He panted a little from the exertion of speaking, those wary green eyes still fixed on her. Elnore had never been looked at so intensely in her life. Most people she knew hardly seemed to look at her at all. It was disconcerting but a little...thrilling.

"No one sent me," she said. "Well, Meredith did technically, but I wanted something to do. I don't work here."

“Meredith’s a bitch,” Vagran said, his lip curling.

“No she’s not!”

The simmering suspicion in his eyes intensified as he looked her up and down.

"You're not a servant, then?”

"Nope," Elnore said easily. Then, because she felt daring, "I'm actually the king's daughter. A bastard, though. It's supposed to be a secret but everyone knows."

“You are not,” the boy snapped, the flush in his gaunt cheeks intensifying, his breathing rattling more as he seemingly became more agitated. "You can't-" he began, but a fit of coughing took him, his shoulders caving as he clutched his chest, eyes shut as he grimaced in pain. Each of his breaths ran ragged through him, triggering another grinding, whimpering hack. The force of them seemed far too much for his fragile body to take. Without thinking, she ran to the bed, throwing her body across where he lay, and took him into her arms. He was alarmingly light and easy to maneuver as she got into a sitting position, back against the dank wall, and pulled him into her lap.

Vagran’s body was so small and frail and shook violently within his ill-fitting clothes as he retched and struggled to breathe, and Elnore held him tightly as if she could keep his hollow little bird bones from shattering if she concentrated hard enough. "There, there," she heard herself say in a soothing tone she imagined a mother might use.

The coughing began to subside, leaving Vagran's face deathly pale, his lips stained with red, which Elnore reached up to wipe away absently. He flinched a little at her touch, and she felt him stiffen. His eyes dazedly focused on her face, that hard, guarded look mingled with something like confusion. He gasped out a few labored breaths before speaking.

"What...are you doing?" He raised a shaking hand and pressed it against her chest, weakly attempting to push her away.

Elnore was momentarily just as confused.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Get off," he wheezed, smacking at her hand in a motion that seemed more painful to him than it was for her. "Why...are you doing that?"

Not wanting to cause him to suffer another attack, Elnore gently removed Vagran from her lap, propping the boy's head up against his pillows again, which she reached underneath to fluff. Apparently exhausted by his coughing fit, his eyes fluttered on the verge of shutting, but he forced them open, watching her warily as if she was some weird and dangerous creature he'd never encountered before.

"Sorry," she said. "I just...if it were me, I'd want a hug." The words felt impossibly lame coming out. He stared at her, mouth quirking downwards.

"A hug," he repeated, like it was some made-up word he doubted the veracity of. "Hmpf. You're weird."

What's weird is that the king has a sick child who lives in the cellar and has never heard of a hug, she thought. She looked again at the unappetizing broth, stone cold by now.

"You should eat," she said.

The boy shrugged a bony shoulder irritably. "Not hungry."

You look starved, she thought, but figured that might be rude. Even though Meredith had said to bring the food and go, she became worried that, just like with the last portion, he wouldn't touch it. Vagran looked about one skipped meal away from death.

"Is there anything you'd rather have?" she asked, thinking she could go back up to the kitchen and grab something else. Meredith often gave her scraps when she baked.

"Water," the boy rasped. Elnore sprang to her feet and went to fetch it, finding the faucet in the adjoining dressing room, a dismal square with a leaking tap over an iron tub and a cracked mirror. When she came back, Vagran seized the cup in both hands and raised it effortfully to his lips, drinking down the contents in desperate gulps. Elnore brought him a second one and he drank most of that too before slowing, breathing more regularly now. He straightened up on the pillows, watching her.

"Can you walk?" she asked, brow furrowed, taking the cup from him.

Vagran looked balefully at her. "Not well," he said shortly. There was a brief silence between them before he spoke again. "Do you...see him?" he asked. “The…the king?”

She felt a raw place open up in her at what his words seemed to suggest.

“Not very often," she answered truthfully. "Really, I'm not sure why he kept me around." She realized the words were true as she said them. Why had she been brought to this isolated place where no one had the time or the use for her?

The boy seemed satisfied with this answer, though he still regarded her with an edge of hostility. "That's because you're a bastard, I imagine," he said. "He's probably ashamed of you, too."

Elnore felt hurt for a moment at hearing her own thoughts reflected so coldly back at her, before she registered the 'too.' The cellar, the neglected air of this place, the fact that she didn't know this boy existed until now...the horrible truth of it hit her in that same raw place.

Vagran's coughing fit seemed to have tired him out. His face was still unnaturally pale but his narrow chest rose and fell more easily now as he settled back on his pillows, his eyes beginning to drift shut.

"Okay," Elnore said, looking briefly at the untouched bowl at his bedside. "My name's Elnore by the way."

"I don't remember asking."

Trying not to be too put out, she turned for the door. Vagran seemed to be asleep by the time she reached it, so she was surprised when he spoke from behind her again, the words sounding as though they'd been ripped from him against his will.

"Are you coming back?"

Elnore stopped, trying to hold back the excitement that flowed through her. Her back to the bed, she grinned.

"Do you want me to?"

It was a step too far. When she looked back at him, Vagran was scowling again, his gaunt face flushed.

"Don't care," he said, refusing to meet her eyes.

She did not think she'd misheard the wavering note in his voice. Hope.

"I'll come back tomorrow," she said.