Young Writers Society

A/N: It's weird that I keep switching between "Gordon" and "her father" in relation to the same character, right? It just seemed strange to keep writing "Daena's father" every time he did something.

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It had been a long walk to the river with all this military equipment weighing them down, but Daena and Gordon had finally made it. The river was about two miles outside of town and for most people it was the only source of water. It rushed down rocky rapids fast in some places, plateaued in others. The one thing that most people commented on was how clear it was these days, beautiful as it travelled along between banks of healthy green grass. Ever since the town had agreed to assign some people the job of daily water transportation, barely any household didn't have a well maintained tank of water in its back garden.

Daena's house was no exception, but washing the blood off Gordon's armour and sword was decided not to be a suitable task to undertake in the house. So they'd borrowed a cart from the neighbours, and brought the armour out to the river. There was also a huge wooden container to do the actual washing in, since polluting the river with week-old blood was an even worse idea than simply bathing in it, which in days gone by had caused it to run brown and murky.

"Are you sure about this, Daena?" Gordon said, his hand hovering over the latch on the cart. "I have some camping equipment in all this stuff, you could just do that if you like."

Daena shook her head rapidly and exclaimed, "But Dad, this as close as I can get to the action! Every little dent in your shield I want to know how it happened. I want to hear about the other soldiers and - oh my God, please tell me about Robin MacTulloch! Is it true he can shoot water out the end of his sword?"

Daena's heart sank as her father's gaze dropped to the ground and he shifted from foot to foot. She was seventeen now, so close to the age he was when he first enlisted in the army. Surely he wouldn't still insist on keeping his adventures from her.

"Please, honey, promise me you're not going to build your hopes up too high about this palace visit? I don't want you to be too disappointed when you see that pretty much everyone is as boring as your old man." His voice was quiet, but strained. Daena figured she probably better stop pushing him for the moment.

"Alright," she said. She took a big, dramatic breath. "I suppose I shall just have to satisfy myself by cleaning your biggest sharpest sword."

Gordon hung his head. "If it'll calm you down, you strange, strange child."

He clicked the latch on the cart and lowered the back of it. Daena closed her eyes for a moment to prepare, then looked up at the load.

The first thing that sprang out at her was an enormous breastplate. The edges of a cape or a cloak - bright red, of course - were visible at the tops of the shoulders, and there was a big brown spray of dried blood stained across the middle. Daena gaped at it. Nobody ever ended up in hand to hand contact on border control. Her heart fluttered again at the thought that her father must have done something truly out of the ordinary.

Her gaze drifted around from the breastplate to some chain mail, some jet black leather breeches, and a whole jumble of upside down objects that must have made up the rest of the suit. Then, finally, they stopped on an item near the front of the pile, but a little to the side.

Gordon put an arm around her shoulders. "Alright, you can have one Robin MacTulloch fact. He complimented the craftsmanship of that sword."

Daena's eyebrows shot up and she looked round at him. "No way! Have you told the Fredericks? Oh, wait, you just got here. Sorry, got excited."

Gordon shook his head. "My own fault. But that's it now. You promise to stop asking about him if you get to clean the sword?"

Daena nodded firmly. She wasn't entirely sure she believed herself, but she knew for certain that she wanted to clean that sword. Gordon sighed and reached into the cart, gripping the bottom of the sword's hilt with his fingertips and dragging it a little closer to him until he could get it in a proper grip. Daena watched with eyes wide like a bug's as the muscles in his arms tensed, while simultaneously his dextrous fingers turned the sword so the blade wasn't scraping along the wooden floor of the cart.

"Honey, you're going to have to stop shaking," Gordon said as he held the sword out towards her.

Daena looked down at her outstretched hand and realised she was trembling in anticipation. She took a deep breath, and a last shiver ran down her spine. "Please, I can do this. Every soldier's nervous on his first day, right?"

Daena frowned as her father winced at that last sentence. He'd been starting to smile, perhaps a pleased by his determination. Now his face fell back to nerves and he wordlessly passed her the sword.

It was no heavier than she'd been expecting, though to be fair she'd been expecting to feel like she was lifting Alistair. But she'd dreamt of this moment, pictured exactly how she would deal with the weight and hold the sword perfectly balanced so that it didn't tip downwards. She stared at the splashes of brown running all the way up one side, and felt herself come out in goosebumps. Seventeen years had been worth the wait.

About ten minutes later, the sword was nearly approaching something that could be called shiny. It really had been in terrible condition at first - not just the blood, but the dirty sand caked into all the hilt's grooves and smeared along the side of the blade. Daena didn't plan on stopping until it was dazzlingly spotless, but shiny was a good start.

"I stopped an assassin from getting to him," Gordon said suddenly.

He was crouched at the other side of the big wooden water tank, rubbing absentmindedly at his helmet with a ragged cloth.

"Dad?" Daena said, frowning. "It's fine. I'm happy with the sword. You don't have to tell me."

He shook his head and set the helmet to one side. "Can I trust you to keep a secret?"

Daena nearly dropped the sword into the increasingly filthy tank in front of her. "Of course you can."

"Then I need you to listen. All I did was my job. The assassin was clumsy, and I was only there because the guard who fell asleep owed me money. I grabbed my shortbow, shot the guy in the foot, then ran forward and disarmed him," Gordon said, his voice churning out the words in a flat monotone.

"That's... that's brilliant," Daena said, balancing the sword on the edge of the tank.

Her father look up at her. "No it's not. That's the thing. I know that to you this is all so glamorous, but that was routine for me. I'm not trying to gloat, I'm trying to tell you that I don't understand why Sir Robin has insisted that the Queen make such a hero out of me."

"If you're trying to stop me from thinking you're really cool, it's not going to happen," Daena said, smiling with one side of her mouth.

Her father chuckled. "Please, I know a lost cause when I see one, and that's coming from the man that's been trying to placate angry Ceradins for six months. No, I just... I need you to promise me you won't go around telling all your friends how amazing I am. I know you'd love to but... it just isn't true."

Daena frowned, and studied some patterning on the sword for a moment. Not exactly the tactical insight of a secret she'd been hoping for, but it was still thrilling to know her father trusted her.

"Alright, I guess I'll keep quiet about it," Daena said, "Though you'd probably be better talking to Janet and Alistair. They're the ones who actually have friends to tell."

The pained, anxious look flashed across her father's features again, and Daena realised with a jolt that the last time she'd seen that expression before today it had been on Janet's face when she'd first heard their father was coming home. She wondered how Janet would feel to know she was so similar to the parent she had this big issue with.

"Janet probably won't want to talk to too many people about me," Gordon said quietly, "And Alistair would never brag about anything, can you even imagine that?"

Gordon started to laugh, a fast, breathy laugh.

Daena giggled too. The image of Alistair puffing his chest out and telling Maureen that his dad was better than hers was rather difficult to imagine.

"So, how is Alistair?" Gordon asked, "Other than being dragged away from his dreams..."

Daena smiled sadly and started to tell him about the previous week when Alistair and Maureen had dragged out the world's longest game of tag for a full three days. She laughed at the memory of every so often seeing them race across her path as she walked around town, and by the time she'd finished telling her father, the sword was clean.