Aedan

Not 100% happy with him, but here's more from ysterday's story - if he even ends up in the story, that is. 

Aedan started life as an RPG character of mine, Aidan Cameron, and acquired a bunch of backstory early on, which became the first draft of the novel working-titled "The Rhyddion Chronicles"; back then, "The Hour of the Wolf". It had always been a story loosely modelled on the Welsh Wars that ended with the death of Llywelyn the Last in 1282. The first draft was full of werewolves, goblins, strange pantheons and magic; in 2008, I scrapped most of those and made the setting more clearly medieval, with a Catholic church as one of the players. It gained momentum once again in 2012, when I decided to make Aedan a bard (and change his name to Aedan in the first place), wrote a prologue that still makes me giddy when I read it - and then it went nowhere, and was left lying. 

Now, with the owl story to be incorporated, I'm not even sure if I should even keep Aedan in the story. From the second draft, it became more and more about Llywelyn's fate, and Aedan has entirely too much backstory in all of this that has no real connection to the rest. I suppose that, if I end up doing more with the story, I need to take a huge broom to my cast of characters... or find a way to fit in Aedan more meaningfully than as an enfant terrible who supplies the fun dialogue. XD

“No, that harp is for the ladies.” Aedan wore a bright grin as he said it.

“Whooo,” Llywelyn catcalled. “Now I do wish I was going with you.”

Aedan gave a derisive snort. “Go and rub your ears dry,” he said with a grin, rolling his padded cowhide gambeson into a tight coil and wrapping it securely in a leather bag. “You’ve no idea what I’m talking about.”

“I do!” Llywelyn protested, sitting more squarely on the chicken coop wall in an attempt to convey both worldliness and dignity, which was mostly foiled by the clucking chickens behind him. 

Aedan busied himself with the saddlebags. “Don’t let the monks hear that. They’d make you say pater nosters until Christmas. Believe me. I’ve been there.” 

“Been where?” Rhys asked, leading his sorrel from the stables, his eyebrows raised quizzically.

“Pretty much everywhere.” Aedan was grinning from ear to ear by now. “Though I’d recommend the hay barn, personally.”

Of course, I need to keep Aedan just to have an excuse to keep Rhys. Good old earnest Rhys.