She Wasn't Always a Witch

Falerin

Another year has passed and I now look almost exactly as how I once did. The Old Blind Witch says that I will not begin to age yet until I have been fully restored. I asked her once where I was during that time that she had me asleep for a year. She did not answer me, only smiled and said cryptically, "Not all things are meant to be known." I never asked after that because I would get a feeling that I was not meant to know this particular information.

Throughout the year, Bellamour has tried to prosuade me to seek out my children. I still felt that maybe they would be better off believing me dead, than having to cope with the real story of how I became the monster they assumed murdered their mother. I simply felt that now was not the time to go looking for them. It would only confuss them further.

The hardest part of my marriage to Bellamour was having to tell him that I was not able to give him children. At first, he believed that I was jesting because I didn't want to have children. It was that way for about a week until he began realizing that I wasn't jesting him. Than, he became upset with me. He told me that I gave children to my previous husbands but not him and that my selfishness was going to make me live alone. I knew that he was upset and was only speaking out of hurt and anger but his words hurt me to the marrow of my being.

We did not speak to one another or sleep in the same room for more than a month. He finally came to me one day and kneeled on both his knees. He told me that even though he wished I were able to bear him sons, he loved will always love me and never leave me. I did not cry at his words until he kissed my stomach and nuzzled my naivale through my dress. I weeped in his arms the rest of the night, cursing my ancestors for doing this to me. We made beautiful love together that night and I felt that maybe, I would be able to give him a child not through me but through a women of my choosing.

I enterained the idea for a few months before I informed him of my trust in him and love for him. He believed that I was only being more romantic than usual but when I told him that I would be alright with him taking a mistress to bed for an heir he laughed at me. I do not know why he believed this to be funny but I was serious. He told me that he wouldn't wish to father a child that was not a fruit of my womb. I weeped.

More time passed this way, he and I living piecefully in the castle, loving each other quietly by day and passionately by night. It was a simple way to live. I grew fruits and vegetables in the garden much to the awe of the other ladies and dislike of the King although he hasn't said nary a word to me or my Bellamour of it. Yet. I began to feel a sense of home within the castle walls and I took to over seeing that the castle was cleaned spotless daily. It helped when Bellamour was out defending Arthurs boarders or training the men in combat.

Another year passed and I was finally able to think freely and be myself. I was no longer in my mind any longer but I was able to breath freely and speak clearly and recieve responses. It was a truly beautiful and humbling feeling. I decided that I was ready to find my castle. I had been thinking of my home for some time now but I didn't believe that it would still be standing. With all the Saxon invasions and my castle being so out near the Saxons, I assumed that it was either in rubble or taken by the Saxon's.

"Bellamour, I'd like to find my castle." I told him while we were lounging in bed after our love making.

"The same castle that your great aunt allowed you to live in when your mother died?" He asked me

I nodded my head yes.

"If it is where you say it is, than that means that it is in Saxon teritory and may now be in their posession. That land belonged to no one except the towns people who lived there."

"I know this. I simply wish to go back and see if it is still there."

"That would mean a weeks journey at best. At worst two weeks. I do not trust you alone in those parts wife, I'd have to come with you." He told me