Disclaimer: I'm done. Go back and read the real book for the millionth time ever.

A Good Start

DALLBEN

Dallben had been anxious about Taran, gone these many weeks with Hen Wen lost and the Horned King at large. But he had been trying to hide it as best he could, for Coll had been much more so. The farmer had been hoeing the life out of his vegetable garden, and pacing holes in the cottage floor when he could not find anything to busy himself about.

But when the bees and chickens returned, bearing tidings of Medwyn, Dallben knew that some great evil had broken in Prydain. And one golden afternoon in the early autumn, when his spells were touched by a familiar hand, Dallben knew Gwydion Son of Don had come again. He reached out with his mind, eyes closed and feet propped up on the table before him, and he felt Gwydion riding fast and merrily towards them, and Hen Wen, and some four or five others besides. Dallben had a feeling his boy had come home at last, and come home triumphant.

He stuck his head out the window, to where Coll laboured in the smithy to sharpen a rake that didn't need it. "Coll! Stoke the fires! He returns, and with royal companions! I daresay they'll all be hungry enough to eat an ox apiece. Do what you can for them, will you? And make up the barn!"

Coll cried out with joy. The rake was left by the wayside, and Coll went to busy himself about preparing Taran's welcome home. Dallben sat back, waiting. What news had Gwydion to tell him of Prydain? Of his boy's doings there?

He was somewhat torn between laughter and a scowl when the company coming at last became visible, hours after he sensed them coming, over the hill. Taran had obviously done quite well for himself in whatever adventure he had stumbled into in defiance of Dallben's orders. There sat Hen Wen on a horse litter. There one of the Fair Folk, if his eyes did not deceive him, and there a fair maid of perhaps twelve. A yellow-haired young man with a harp rode on Gwydion's left, and at the Son of Don's right hand, on a handsome, strong gray stallion, rode Taran himself, grinning fit to burst. Dallben was seized with a completely unreasonable surge of pride, but by all the gods, it was going to be a chore to deflate the young peacock's head again after whatever it was that he'd done!

He had, Dallben discovered, after talk with Lord Gwydion, done a little bit of everything except the tasks he meant to do. He had lost Hen Wen, not once, but twice. He had undertaken, when he was separated from the Prince of Don, to warn Caer Dathyl of the armies of the Horned King, but had been delayed by ill-chosen shortcuts and kindness to monsters of Arawn alike until his 'warning' had done no actual good at all, and he would have been likely to be killed had not Gwydion returned with their salvation.

Yet, Gwydion told him, Taran had also accomplished much. He had rescued a princess from captivity under Achren, former queen of Annuvin, and brought her about to his cause. He had befriended and civilised a beast-man, beggar, and brigand, and replaced the creature's cowardice and self-pity with courage and purpose. Taran had made a long-lasting friend in Fflewddur Fflam, the gallant fraudulent bard and flighty king of the north. The brave and trusty man had fought for Dallben's ward, and to Gwydion's judgment, would be quick to do so again, despite the mistakes Taran had made while leading his quest. Taran had walked in Medwyn's hidden valley and the underground realm of Eiddileg, and emerged friend to both. And he had looked to pity and befriend what another would have only seen as a monster to be slain, and through his kindness, had enabled Gwydion to destroy the Horned King.

And he had asked no reward, no thanks for his brave deed. The steed he rode now had been freely and gladly given, for he had in truth won Gwydion's friendship, too. The horse was foal to Gwydion's own Melyngar, and henceforth when Coll took Taran to the smithy and set him to the fashioning of horseshoes it would be an activity to some purpose. For at last, all Taran the wistful, Taran the rash, Taran who had wanted only to escape from Caer Dallben before all this had happened, all Taran had wished at the end of his brave adventures was to return home, here, to Caer Dallben. And for Gwydion's part, he believed the lad very well might grow to be the sort of man that could rule Prydain someday, but if he did not, still would he be friend to the House of Don.

And if he would, Lord Gwydion thought it would be well if not just Gurgi, but the Princess Eilonwy of Llyr, too could stay at Caer Dallben. Gurgi would reward a hearth and an occupation with amazing loyalty and industry, and already he loved Taran well. And the Princess Eilonwy, though she would no doubt be welcomed by her kinsmen on Mona, or received again at Caer Dathyl, he thought would much prefer a home where she might remain close to the friend for whose sake she had risked everything and left the only home she had known, as dismal as it may have been.

Dallben thought for a long time after Gwydion had left him and left Caer Dallben to return home. And then, for a long time after that, he did nothing but write in the Book of Three of what Taran had done and who he was becoming. Then he called to Coll, and sent for the boy.

The boy came in just when the moon was rising in the sky. Dallben put aside the Book of Three, and surveyed his young charge. He felt a quiet sense of wellbeing to have Taran back here, for a time, where he belonged. He was very glad he had done the ridiculous thing, all those years ago, and taken Taran on himself, rather than giving him to some well-intentioned woman. "Well now," he said. "I should like the two of us to speak quietly to each other," he said. "First, I am interested to learn what you think of being a hero. I daresay you feel rather proud of yourself."

Taran sat down on the bench he was accustomed to rest on during his talks and lessons with Dallben. His eyes were cast downward, and his face was grave.

Dallben looked at him more closely. "Although, I do not gain that impression from your face."

Taran looked up then. "I have no just cause for pride," he said simply. "It was Gwydion who destroyed the Horned King, and Hen Wen helped him do it. But Gurgi, not I, found her. Doli and Fflewddur fought gloriously while I was wounded by a sword I had no right to draw. And Eilonwy was the one who took the sword from the barrow in the first place. As for me, what I mostly did was make mistakes."

Dallben blinked, a little surprised, yet not at all displeased by Taran's assessment of what had befallen him. "My, my," he said gently. "Those are complaints enough to dampen the merriest feast. Though what you say may be true, you have cause for a certain pride nevertheless. It was you who held the companions together and led them. You did what you set out to do, and Hen Wen is safely back with us. If you made mistakes, you recognise them. As I told you, there are times when the seeking counts more than the finding.

"Does it truly matter?" he asked Taran, "Which of you did what, since all shared the same goal and the same danger? Nothing we do is ever done entirely alone. There is a part of us in everyone else—you, of all people, should know that. From what I hear, you have been as impetuous as your friend Fflewddur; I have been told, among other things, of a night when you dove head first into a thorn bush. And you have certainly felt as sorry for yourself as Gurgi; and, like Doli, striven for the impossible."

Taran was silent a moment, thinking. "Yes," he admitted finally, "But that is not all that troubles me. I have dreamed often of Caer Dallben and I love it—and you and Coll—more than ever. I asked for nothing better than to be at home, and my heart rejoices. Yet it is a curious feeling. I have returned to the chamber I slept in and found it smaller than I remember. The fields are beautiful, yet not quite as I recalled them. And I am troubled, for I wonder now if I am to be a stranger in my own home."

Dallben looked over his books at this serious young man growing up right before his eyes. He felt that he had loved him better every day since he had first plucked him out of a bush hidden away from a decaying battlefield, alone and friendless, and would love him better yet. "No," he said, with feeling. "That you shall never be. But it is not Caer Dallben which has grown smaller. You have grown bigger. That is the way of it."

Taran hardly heeded this. "And there is Eilonwy," he went on. "What will become of her? Is it—is it possible you would let her stay with us?"

Dallben fingered the Book of Three. He wondered if there were any 'ifs' in it that bespoke of an Assistant Pig-Keeper falling in love with a madcap young princess, or vice versa. Perhaps there ought to be, or would be one day. "By all rights," he said, "The Princess Eilonwy should be returned to her kinsmen—"

Taran started, and Dallben smiled.

"Yes, she is a princess. Did she not tell you? But there is no hurry about that. She might consent to stay. Perhaps if you spoke to her."

And that was it for their quiet little talk. The boy gave a glad cry and was out the door before Dallben could say a word to detain him. And Dallben, great enchanter of Prydain, buckler against the wrath of Annuvin, sighed. Then he propped his elbow on the Book of Three, leant his head against his hand, and laughed.

A/N: My little retelling through the eyes of the companions has done now. I hope you enjoyed my meagre contribution to the fandom. I have enjoyed sharing it with you, and hope that you will leave a small note now to tell me what you thought of it, whether good or bad.

I may or may not be back this summer with more ideas. Far be it from me to write anything with an actual plot, but one or two character sketches of our bold bard have been floating around in my head ever since I was foolish enough to imagine a backstory for him, and I did start on a retelling of the second book similar to this one that I never finished. The relationships and ideas the companions have about Taran that I have traced here I feel reach their fruition in Black Cauldron. Gwydion gives Taran-the-boy a mission hoping to turn him into a man, and finds it succeeds perhaps beyond what he'd hoped, and to his sorrow. Adaon and Ellidyr both realize instinctively what Taran is and what he will become, but Adaon loves him for it enough to die for it, while Ellidyr hates Taran enough for it to die to himself before sacrifice brings him to life again. Fflewddur does not realize what Taran will become intuitively or consciously, but perhaps behaves as though he has already inwardly sworn the loyalty oath no one else will swear to Taran for years. And I am convinced Princess Eilonwy makes up her very determined mind that someday, she will marry Taran of Caer Dallben, when he has perhaps grown up a bit more sensible.

Alas, for now these stories are not to be. For now, I must shove them to the back of my mind and focus on my graduate studies. I will desperately hope that I will be bored enough in the summer to rejoin you.

For now, Vale.

God Bless,

LMSharp