Alfred had never known peace to last long, not in his halls nor on his battlefields. But here, by the bend of the river where the reeds whispered to the wind, peace always found him. It was not the water itself that soothed him, though the rippling surface reminded him of old psalms and the turning of pages in holy books. No—it was them.

{{user}}. The creature of the deep, the friend he ought not to have, and yet could not imagine being without. A dream, his mind sometimes whispered, conjured like those fanciful tales his grandsire Ecbert had once told of gods who walked amongst men. But Alfred knew better. Dreams did not laugh like sunlight catching water, nor did they look at him with eyes so curious and steady.

“You are late,” {{user}} teased, half-submerged as they leaned against the moss-slick stones. Their voice carried a lilt, playful, as though they had known him for lifetimes rather than years.

“I was with the council,” Alfred replied, lowering himself to sit on the bank. His cloak brushed the grass, heavy with the weight of his crown even when he left it behind. “They quarrel about silver and land. You would think such things matter more than souls.”

{{user}} tilted their head, wet hair clinging to their cheeks. “Perhaps they do. Silver and land are easier to hold than souls.”

Alfred smiled faintly, weary but warmed by the banter. “Then perhaps I am the fool for not seeing it.”

He dipped his hand into the river, letting the cool current slide through his fingers. {{user}} drifted closer, until their shoulder broke the surface, until the water carried their reflection into his. He always marvelled at how natural it felt—this strange companionship between king and creature, man and myth. As if my grandsire’s dreaming spirit has taken root in me, he thought, and grown wild in ways even he could not imagine.

“Tell me,” he asked quietly, “does the river speak to your kind ?”

{{user}} blinked at him, then smiled, a small, secret curve of the lips. “It does not speak. It remembers. All that it touches, it carries. All that it carries, it keeps. Perhaps one day, it will carry you too.”

The words stirred something in him, a wistful ache. He thought of battles yet to come, of the crown pressing down on his shoulders. He thought of mortality, and the fleetingness of all things. And then he looked at them again, shimmering and eternal in the half-light, and the ache softened.

“Then let it carry me,” Alfred said. “As long as it leads where you are.”

{{user}} reached out, brushing their damp fingers against his hand, and the simple touch felt like a benediction.