Title: The Sex Life of a Married Hero

or, Why Heroes Get Married

or, Four Weddings and Funeral

Author: Jade Sabre

Note: I first started this fic…at least four years ago, and I have worked on it on and off again ever since. It has followed me through college and two jobs and now a wedding, and having sent my own hero off to fight in a much less noble war, I've finished it, and I hope you enjoy it. Reviews are always appreciated.

Disclaimer: Fable doesn't belong to me.

The Sex Life of a Married Hero, or Why Heroes Get Married, or Four Weddings and a Funeral

1.

He married his first wife on a whim, flushed with the onset of victory and fame and adoration and all the things that came with being a successful Hero. She'd come up to him, fawning over him and saying, "Is it just me, or is it a bit 'ot in 'ere?" while leaning too close to the candle flame, her shoulders hunched in a way that drew his eyes to the expanse of her cleavage. In the flickering light she'd seemed beautiful, and it was the first time he'd heard the heat in a woman's voice, heat to match the blood thundering through his veins.

So he went out and bought the ring and the house (the marital house, and it would be a shame to rent something with such a title for someone else to use) and married her, and a little crowd gathered around the pavilion to wish them well, and he heard their cheers as he kissed her—her lips were chapped, her cheeks plump—and knew he was on the right path.

Of course out in the sunlight it was clear she was a good ten years older than he was, and after he'd carried her over the threshold and spent his first night in her arms, he woke to hear her voice, talking about someone named Archie she'd known once upon a time and sakes alive, hadn't he been the nicest fellow. He came to realize that hearing her voice meant one of two things: comparisons between him and past lovers, or criticisms. She nagged him about coming home more often, complained about Traders going to the Orchard Farm (indeed, he himself never figured out what was so particularly attractive about the farm, but as long as it stood there were Traders who wished to go), and gave him cheap gifts of patched trousers and half-baked pies, even when he brought home the rarest of treasures from his journeys (his first emerald from an earth troll, a bouquet of roses to remind her of their courtship). He heard her bragging about him in the pub, her Hero, her big strong Hero, as he walked past, heading out the gates of Bowerstone and into a world where he was simply one Hero among many, and a young one at that.

The final straw was the day he came back from protecting Orchard Farm, sore and tired but determined to give her a proper sort of welcome. She was waiting with another pair of darned trousers and wearing a skirt with nothing underneath, and although he could barely bring himself to look at her, he scooped her up in his arms, deposited her in the bed, and bounced for all he was worth until, completely spent, he collapsed onto his back, closing his eyes and exhaling with not-quite-relief, not-quite-satisfaction.

It was quiet for a moment, and then she said, in her chirpy voice, "Short but sweet, I always say. Why, I had a man named Jackie once, and he was only ever good for five minutes either, but sakes alive…"

He forced himself to move—forced himself out of his nice feather bed, forced himself to pull on his pants, to grab his sack, his muscles aching in protest—and just as he was reaching for his Guild seal she squawked, "Now where are you going?"

"To sleep at the Guild," he said. "I won't be back."

"Well I ne—" she started, and then the familiar twinkling kaleidoscope enveloped him and he left the arms of the first woman he'd ever slept with, but not the first woman, it turned out, he'd ever loved.