Work Text:
"I fell madly in love with a miller's son when I was sixteen," Cam told him, sure fingers unravelling the rope strands he would splice with. "I only saw him when father took me into town. He sold us flour. He had big shoulders from carrying flour around. I never even had the courage to put the coin directly into his hand. I always feared that he would ..." he laughed a little at the recollection. "Well, I think I feared it would mean nothing to him, something that meant so much to me."
Cam's family was Old Blood, he had grown up in a whole village of people like him, and learned the ways of the wit at his parents' feet. He had gone to seek his bondmate and his fortune when he had turned twenty, and found a river otter and a trade as a fisherman in one of the smaller coastal towns. Swift had met him while seeking his own bondmate. Cloudheight was an osprey, speedy and proud and lovely. And Cam - Cam was as sleek as his otter Marigold, and charming, and quick to laugh. They had lived together for five years, and by now they and their bondmates were no cause for excitement for the other townsfolk. Cam fished and Swift, who had once served a Prince, tended their small garden and kept bees like his mother had.
"I fell in love when I was ten." Swift grinned at Cam's doubtful face. "I didn't understand it for years and years, but I must have been in love, because I was so jealous of the man he was in love with."
Cam let out a roaring laugh at that, and set aside the now-unbraided line. "Was he especially handsome, the fellow you were in love with?"
"Amazingly handsome. Long golden hair, tall and lithe. He dressed very well, too. And he told the most amazing stories."
"Well-traveled?"
"He was Jamaillian, and had been to Bingtown and the Rain Wilds. He had spoken to an actual dragon, which still impressed me then."
"Before you killed a dragon."
Swift rolled his eyes. "Before Tintaglia was a normal sight in the Six Duchies." Even Cam, who had grown up in one tiny village and now lived in another, had seen Tintaglia and Icefyre. "And he had met her."
Cam wouldn't stop grinning at him, elbow on the table and chin planted on his hand. "And he was handsome. Now tell me about this fellow he was in love with. Was he handsome too?"
"No, he was all scarred. He scared me, because he was big and stern-faced, and he knew my father."
"Oh," Cam said to that. He had told Cam about his father's disapproval of the wit years ago, and Cam hadn't approved of that at all. "And he didn't love the handsome fellow."
"No. He didn't" And Swift had to pause a moment, because he'd have to explain the next part carefully. "And this is the awkward bit."
Cam raised his eyebrows, and kept grinning.
"He married my mother."
Cam burst out laughing. "Tom Badgerlock!" he crowed. "So the handsome Jamaillian fellow with the golden hair must be Lord Golden!"
"You've heard about Lord Golden?"
"Someone told me about him at your brother's wedding." Cam shrugged. "So Badgerlock wasn't involved with Lord Golden?"
"No. At least he denied it. And Lord Golden disappeared, I think. Sometime before Tom married my mother."
"Well who would hang around while their would-be lover married someone else?" Cam shook his head. "You're definitely wrong about one thing."
Swift frowned. "What?"
Cam grinned. "Tom Badgerlock is very handsome."
Swift groaned. "No! No, he's my sisters' father. You're not allowed to say that."
Cam was still laughing when he kissed Swift. The splice was left unfinished.