281 AC — Age 9
Respect did not arrive all at once.
It didn't announce itself. It didn't feel like approval or praise or the sudden warmth of being noticed. If anything, it felt like the opposite—like people had decided they no longer needed to adjust for me.
That realization came slowly, and then all at once.
It started with doors.
Not doors being closed in my face, exactly. Just… not being held anymore. When I walked behind someone through the keep, they didn't pause to make sure I made it through. They didn't look back. If I wasn't paying attention, I caught the edge of a door on my shoulder or had to hurry to keep it from swinging shut.
No one apologized.
No one explained.
At first, I assumed it was an accident.
By the third time, I knew it wasn't.
"Watch yourself," Harlon said one afternoon when I nearly clipped my fingers on a door to the armory corridor.
"I am," I replied.
"Then watch better."
That was the end of the conversation.
Maege didn't comment when I brought it up later—if bringing it up was even the right word. I'd framed it carefully, as an observation rather than a complaint.
"People don't move out of the way anymore," I said, standing near the table while she reviewed accounts.
"No," she agreed, not looking up.
I waited.
"That means they think you can move yourself," she continued. "Or that you should."
I frowned. "Is that good?"
She finally looked up then. "It's neutral."
That answer didn't help.
The change showed up in other places too.
When I walked the circuits with Harlon, guards no longer paused their conversations when we passed. They didn't lower their voices. They didn't stop what they were doing unless Harlon spoke to them directly.
They weren't rude.
They were… uninterested.
That stung more than open dismissal would have.
At nine, I was old enough to notice the difference and young enough that it felt personal.
The yard changed as well.
I still wasn't allowed to join formal drills—that hadn't changed—but I was no longer gently redirected away from the edges. When Gerren worked with older boys, no one told me to step back.
No one told me to step forward either.
I stood where I stood.
If I wanted to see, I had to choose my position carefully. If I wanted to hear, I had to be close enough that it didn't look like eavesdropping.
That was new.
One afternoon, as I watched a pair of guards work through shield movements, one of them glanced my way and frowned.
"You going to stand there all day?" he asked.
I hesitated. "I was told to watch."
He snorted. "Then watch where you're not in the way."
I stepped back immediately.
He didn't look at me again.
Harlon said nothing.
That silence felt deliberate.
Later, as we walked back toward the keep, I asked him, "Did I do something wrong?"
He considered the question longer than usual.
"No," he said finally. "You did nothing."
That wasn't comforting.
"Then why—"
"Because," he interrupted gently, "you're not small enough for people to mind you being in the way. And not important enough for them to care."
I absorbed that in silence.
The next day, Maege gave me a different kind of task.
"Take this to the quartermaster," she said, handing me a small bundle of parchment tied with twine. "And come back."
"Yes," I replied automatically.
She paused me with a raised hand. "You walk. You don't run. And you go the long way."
I nodded.
Harlon fell in behind me without comment.
The quartermaster's workspace was near the docks, far enough from the keep that the air smelled more of salt than stone. Men moved constantly through the space, carrying ledgers, crates, and lengths of rope.
No one noticed me at first.
I stood near the edge, waiting.
The quartermaster—a thick-set man with ink-stained fingers—was arguing quietly with someone about missing tallies. I waited for a pause.
There wasn't one.
I waited longer.
Finally, I stepped forward just enough to be seen.
"I was told to give you this," I said, holding out the bundle.
He glanced down, then at me. "Set it there."
I did.
No acknowledgment. No thanks.
I turned to leave.
"Wait," he said, not unkindly.
I stopped.
"You walk all the way from the keep with that?" he asked.
"Yes."
He nodded once. "Good. Don't run next time either."
I blinked. "I didn't."
"Good," he repeated, and went back to his work.
That was it.
On the way back, Harlon spoke for the first time since we'd left.
"He noticed you," he said.
I frowned. "He barely looked at me."
Harlon's mouth twitched. "Exactly."
The realization didn't feel good.
It felt… heavier.
Respect, I learned, didn't come from being liked.
It came from being predictable.
From not being a problem.
From not needing attention.
That understanding didn't make the days easier.
If anything, it made them lonelier.
Dacey didn't notice the shift the same way I did. She was still loud, still unconcerned with whether people moved aside for her. People still did, mostly out of habit.
"She gets away with everything," I muttered once as she darted through a cluster of servants without a word of rebuke.
"That won't last," Maege replied mildly.
I wasn't sure whether that was a promise or a warning.
Alysane changed things too, in her own way. As she grew, she became a reason people slowed again—but not for me.
When I carried her, people adjusted. When I didn't, they didn't.
That difference was sharp enough to cut.
One evening, I found myself standing near the wall during drills again, this time closer than usual. Close enough that I could hear Gerren correcting footwork, see the way one boy favored his left side without realizing it.
I shifted my weight to get a better view.
A guard beside me glanced down.
"You planning to say something?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"Then don't lean," he replied.
I straightened immediately.
That night, I asked Maege the question I'd been circling for days.
"When do people start listening?" I asked.
She looked at me for a long moment. "When it costs them something not to."
I frowned. "Like what?"
"Time. Effort. Risk," she replied. "Pick one."
That answer stayed with me.
Over the next weeks, I made a point of being exactly where I was told to be, exactly when I was told to be there. I didn't hover. I didn't linger. I didn't insert myself into spaces that weren't mine.
When I was sent to watch, I watched.
When I was told to carry something, I carried it without complaint.
Slowly, people stopped correcting me.
Not because I'd become important.
Because I'd become expected.
One afternoon, as I waited near the well after finishing my circuit, a servant set down a bucket beside me without comment.
I hesitated, then lifted it and carried it where it needed to go.
No one thanked me.
No one questioned it either.
That night, as I sat near the hearth, Dacey leaned against me and frowned.
"You're quieter," she said.
"I'm the same," I replied.
She considered that. "No, you're not."
She didn't explain.
I didn't ask.
Later, when the keep settled and the wind pressed against the walls in its usual, patient way, I thought about everything that hadn't happened that day.
No corrections. No rebukes. No attention.
Just work done and days moving forward.
Respect, I realized, wasn't given.
It was tolerated.
And once tolerated long enough, it became habit.