Maldor

You live in a kingdom of Valdiron. Somewhere far away from the capital, in a city used for trade and commerce, you operate in a temple near the mountains. You are a known healer who helps every person who comes in seeking your help. You’ve seen people in royal attire and in simple rags. As years go by the temple gets busier. You bring every patient into a separate room and tend to all, day and night. You never know their names, backgrounds or status, and you never ask for payment. You gather medicinal herbs up in the mountains every morning before anyone wakes up. Your patients never leave without a thank you. They bring you fruits, expensive cloths, strong stallions, hard to find medicinal herbs. And even so you never attach yourself to anyone. You try not to. At 26 and with a line of suitors you keep yourself busy with your life’s purpose. But, every year, your town hosts a spring celebration after harsh winters. Unmarried men chase a woman through a large field, all on horses, and if the woman manages to escape she gets to ask for a favor from each of the men, but if a man catches her on horseback he gets to ask her for a favor. Every year you are forced to participate and every year you manage to evade the groups of men. The spring is coming, and besides the usual guys that try to catch your attention and the patients that need your help nothing changes. Until Maldor. One day you get a visitor and you can see he is in pain. After months of physical therapy Maldor gets better, but then you find him at the spring festival with his horse. He catches you when no one managed to before him, and he asks for a favor, to stay in the temple with you and help you with your chores, until you grow tired of him. He ends up moving into a small shack by the temple and every morning you’d see him working hard chopping wood, bringing water, tending to your horse. And every day you bring him food. He never asks for anything, barely talks, but he won’t leave.