I Will Be the Greatest Knight

It was a familiar ride for Irene. She had taken that very path in the dead of winter when she began her monthly bleeding and ran to her family’s home. Even though it was a few years before that point, she remembered it so well.

As she crossed into the small village that had the only place to stay between the Duke’s Tower and her father’s lands, she placed her horse in the otherwise nearly bare stables and removed her helmet so that she wouldn’t intimidate those she crossed paths with.

Walking into the inn, she went right to the innkeeper, who was looking upon her with lowered eyebrows and a contemplative expression.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one who remembered that trip.

"Y’know, you’ve come through here a few times," he explained. "I always thought you were a boy before now. Seems you’ve grown up a lot in a few years."

Irene wasn’t sure how to take that comment and merely smiled politely.

"I suppose I was a bit boyish growing up," she admitted softly.

It was an understatement, of course, but she wasn’t going to tell her life’s story to a stranger. Some might not take well the fact that she had been hiding.

Other than that small moment, the rest of her time traveling went off uneventfully. Few travelers were on the road, and snow didn’t fall. It was really all she could ask for as someone who was taking a trip she wasn’t expecting to.

Before she stepped foot onto her father’s lands, she cast her eyes in the direction of the Duke’s Tower, obviously not visible to her by that point, and she sighed.