AphroditeMSC
~Day Dreamer~
I started working on this a few days ago. I'm up the third chapter now and I'm really going with the flow right now. I'm not so náive that I don't know there will be several re-writes and mistakes will no doubt be present, but I was just wondering what you all might think of it so far... all thoughts welcome! If you're not engrossed enough to finish I reckon either a) it's not as interesting as I thought lol or b) you're a busy busy person. Either way, ENJOY!
The night was empty of all the usual sounds one expected to hear. Its very stillness filled her with fear. The utter black of the night surrounded her on all sides as she hurried in the general direction of home. She must hurry, before it was too late. Time, her father had told her once, was everything. Given enough time, one could rule the world.
Ruling the world was far from her thoughts right now. All she had to do was get home and everything would be ok. She could imagine her father’s angry grunt when she walked in the door, two hours late. Again. Seemed that she was always late now. She was leaving earlier and earlier in the mornings and coming home later and later. The bakery was doing good business and they needed her. And she needed the meagre allowance she was paid to slave herself from morning ‘til night if her family was to eat this winter.
Her mother was only a frail thing. She had been told and warned against having any more children once she had had her first. Her body simply could not take any more strain. But things happen. And so her mother found herself with child twice more. Between looking after the family and raising the children, her mother had no time to work the fields surrounding the cosy cottage they lived in.
Her father had long been drafted into service for the local Baron and so the fields went untilled, unplanted and unused. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the Baron offered his men anything of value. Instead, they each got a shiny uniform and helm, seventeen silver vidros a week and a chance to “serve their country”.
All she had to do was get home. If she got home soon her father might not give her a whipping. She might rise in the morning without the added hindrance of a pair of welted, red legs. Her father only did it to keep her from running wild, she reminded herself. And the two younger children would completely run her mother ragged if they thought they could get away with it.
The sound of a night owl filled the darkened skies and she jumped, nervous. A short giggle erupted from her lips before she caught herself and decided that making any noise out here at night was asking for trouble. There were bandits and wild animals and all sorts of dangers to a twelve year old girl. She’d be best keeping silent as she could manage. Flicking her chin-length black hair, she let her long legs carry her along, her dainty, bare feet padding softly on the packed earth.
Eventually she came to the little stream by the shade of an old oak tree that her father used for fishing on the warmer days of summer. She could wash up here quickly and be home in less than ten minutes. Her mother would soothe any anger out of her father once they heard that she was to get a pay rise. Two extra copper vidros a week. That would be enough to buy a store of grain for the winter if they were careful. Very careful.
The gentle lapping of the stream snapped her attention back to the here and now and she dipped a finger in, testing its chill and wondering if maybe her mother would let her draw water from the well to heat instead. She’d heard that one of the local boys had lost a finger to frost bite from washing in the stream in autumn.
From her place, crouching in the mud of the bank she heard the door to the cottage slam with a force and quickly decided against asking for so much as a mug of water from the well. Her father was obviously in a temper. Sucking in a breath, she hurriedly scrubbed at her hands and arms in the frigid water, tensing when it came into contact with the sensitive skin on the inside of her elbow. Her breath bloomed in foggy tendrils as she rose, preparing herself for the scene to come.
She could almost feel the burn of her father’s leather belt on the backs of her thighs as she swiftly trudged along. The biting sting of the first crack, soon followed by the muted numbness of her skin defending itself against such a powerful onslaught. It only ever lasted for a few moments. But, while it was happening, it felt like forever.
A scream split the air as she reached the perimeter of the garden. It was a short run from here to the house and she tensed, body automatically going into fight or flight stance…
Lanta woke with a general feeling of apprehension. Something was wrong. She’d been having the dreams again. They had stopped a few years ago only to resurface this last spring. Why?
Shaking the sleep from her face, she rose and went to the nearby stream to wash and gather water for breakfast. Perhaps it was the sound of the stream that had brought on her dreams again. But she’d slept by many streams the last few years and never once had that dream again. The thought that it might be due to the fact that she was nearing the outskirts of her old town, her old home and her old dreams, occurred to her in passing.
Possibly.
A gentle snickering brought her attention upon Zephyr, who was tied to the nearest tree by the ribbon of water cutting through the dense woodland. He would be hungry now too. It was almost dawn and she intended to be packed up and gone by the time the first ray hit her campsite. She could never be too careful. That she had fallen asleep bothered her. She had meant to stay awake longer. She guessed that it had been around three of the morning when she drifted off.
Four hours later and here she was, with this nasty feeling of having missed something important. But then again, she felt that way about any sleep she was forced to take. If she was forced by her flimsy humanity to sleep at all, she preferred it to be during the daylight hours when the only things she had to fear were some raggedy bandits or some fleas when, on a rare occasion she slept at an inn.
Bandits, she could deal with. Falling asleep outside, in the middle of the night, she disliked, but could deal with that when it happened too. But those dreams. She hated them and feared them twice as much. It was a bad omen, in her opinion for her to have that dream so close to her old home. Where things had gone so drastically wrong.
Zephyr drank greedily after his breakfast of oats and while Lanta washed her plate and mug she began to think back on her past. She thought of all the people she had loved and lost that one night. And all the people she had met since. Some of them would still be singing her praises she knew. But it meant nothing to her. Nothing. How could she feel anything but a raw, burning resentment after what had happened? Was she supposed to carry on with her life as if her whole existence hadn’t been ripped from her on that dark, desperate night?
The bread and cheese she had nibbled at turned to bile in her stomach and she stood abruptly, making Zephyr shy away in the face of her obvious bad mood. “I’m sorry, boy,” she crooned, suitably chastened. She hadn’t meant to frighten poor Zephyr, who had been the only true friend she’d had since she was twelve.
Figuring it was past time that she was gone she packed away her breakfast things, rolled up her blankets and swung herself into Zephyr’s comfortable saddle.
Things would be better once she got away from this place, with its memories and ghosts.
The little town of Somer’s End soon came into view. Squatting like a dwarf amongst the higher hills of the surrounding towering Teeth. Memories of playing amongst the rubble at the foot of the nearest mountain came to her, shocking in its clarity and harsh in its detail. Her entire childhood was spent in the adjacent area, some of it stark and cruel and more of it merry and filled with the youthful enthusiasm that only a child can have.
The dense green of the waist high grass trickled over the land towards the valley that Somer’s End was situated in, populated by wild flowers and plants and the welcoming scent of lavender and wood smoke. She could almost expect her father to come thrashing up the sloped hillside to berate her for being late for lunch. She could taste the crumbly, sweet bread her mother made every morning and smell the succulent meat boiling in a pot hanging over the open fire.
Shouts of ghostly children that were her siblings could almost be heard by her wistful ear and she sighed, feeling the deep melancholy that this strip of the earth always brought to her. A giant golden eagle soared above her and Zephyr, heading back to its nest and its family. Even that small work of wonder made Lanta sad. With a deep breath and a gentle tap of Zephyr’s flank they were off, headed toward Guardians knew what and a sense of extreme menace.
She’d heard the stories and the rumours. She knew there was something here to hunt. And hunt it she would.
Villagers of varying degrees of decline and misery greeted her appearance with wide-eyed stares and common scepticism. Used to this type of welcome, Lanta held her head high and pretended that this was just another town. Any other town. Just another place with a problem she could solve and earn good coin doing so. This place was not her home. Not anymore. If it ever really was.
The Baron was dead, and this was not common knowledge. If it were to reach the ears of the Sovereign or any of his agents, the town was lost. While a dreadful pig, the old Baron was, at least, fair. Guardians knew what a new Baron would do to the townspeople and their families. Lanta knew, of course, having been told by the appointed “leader” of the village in a missive that had reached her a fortnight ago.
The said missive had been carted all around the Realm of Noshiahei in the hopes of finding the right person to deliver it to. It had found Lanta in the bustling town of Tempulleigh in the hands of a vastly inexperienced and bone-tired herald.
She had left with the next tide upon a small goods ship bound for Teraaslier, fully paid for by the leader and the villagers. Everything had been explained in the missive. All apart from whom the leader actually was. This, she was desperately waiting to be informed of.
There were quite a few people in the town that might remember her, but even more that would not. In a mid-sized village such as Somer’s End, turnover was high as the harsh winters claimed life after life and the Baron was not one to sit and twiddle his thumbs awaiting a new generation to reach adulthood. He had come up with a scheme whereupon the death of a family in its entirety, he would send word to the great capital Teraaslier for a family to be brought. There was land to tend to, and profit to make. And, of course, taxes to pay to the Baron.
An anxious fist took hold of her throat and seized it tight when a face she had thought never to see again reeled out from the inn. Nordan, drunk as a youth on midsummer’s night lurched into the street and proceeded towards the old, ramshackle building he called home. His intoxicated gait staggered two and fro as he teetered at the doorway, trying to unlatch the door. One of the younger men in the crowd noticed Lanta glaring in Nordan’s direction and swiftly unlatched the entrance for him, hustling him inside as if by her stare alone she might cause him to die.
Fear. That was another emotion she was used to when arriving at a new town with a new problem. Fear bred like rabbits amongst the small minded and defenceless, seeding doubt in everyone and everything that would usually cause no more stir than a fist fight in a raucous whore house.
No one person would meet her eye and she wondered if she were to leap off Zephyr right at that moment, would they scatter like grains of sand in the wind or merely drop dead on the spot from fright.
Neither, she discovered a moment later when she did just that. A few wide eyes turned saucer-like and most of the faces paled. But there was a steely determination in most that told her they would hold their ground and die before giving up their newfound lease of freedom. She admired that in these pitiful men and women. Admired that they would go to all the trouble to find one such as her and bring her here with nothing more than her word that she was trustworthy. They were desperate. And she was the last hope for the desperate. She would not let them down.
“Who is leader here?” she asked, abruptly to be met with blank faces and bewildered frowns. “Who sent forth this missive I hold in my hands?” Lanta held the parchment up high so as to let them all get a good, long look at it. Rapt faces eyed the piece of parchment in wonder, no doubt cheerful that their emissary had reached his goal and that he had found someone to help them.
“Noshiar!” screeched one elderly woman, pulling the tattered shawl closer about her face, hiding herself lest she be thought a traitor for letting the information flow from her gap toothed mouth.
Lanta nodded slowly. Noshiar, indeed. He had been but a boy when Lanta was last here, fifteen years ago. But then again, she had been just a girl. She supposed he’d be almost twenty five now and in his prime. A life in Somer’s End was a hard one. Gruelling work and austere weather conditions conspired to end lives relatively early in this part of the Realm. “Lead me to him”, she requested with a sigh. The hard part was about to begin.
The cloying scent of wood smoke hung heavy in the air of the cottage as Lanta seated herself in front of a large, scarred table cluttered with the remnants of an early morning breakfast. Obviously living alone, Noshiar was not very house proud. Evidence of his hastily swept floor and grime thickened window by the rumpled bed showed that he was a busy man with no time for house keeping.
Lanta relaxed in the knowledge that this was a sincere man. You could tell a lot about a person by visiting their home. And this home, with its scantily scrubbed appearance put her at ease. Busy, hardworking, honest, modest and genuine, she felt sure they’d get on famously. If he ever showed up, that was.
She had been sitting here, nervously watched over by two young men with shaking fingers and twitching lips. They were afraid of her. Afraid of what she did for a living. Terrified that the darkness that had infested her life would leak out and soil them somehow. She smiled widely at them both and relaxed in satisfaction as their faces paled dramatically. They would be so easy to escape. Easy enough that she knew these men were here for observation and not enforcement. Noshiar was apparently working the back field and would be along “any time now”. She was beginning to resent this meeting.
She hated the fact that she was less than a twenty minute jog from her old stone cottage and her old cruel memories. She hated that she felt compelled and obliged to come back here to this simpering little village with its small town ideals and its small minded people. She hated that she was sitting here with two boys that were petrified to breathe the same air as her lest they be infected with hopelessness and insignificance. Her face had a monotonous grin and she hated wearing it, the falsity of it all. When all she really wanted to do was get the facts, go on the hunt, get paid and leave this place and these people.
Her breathing increased to a pitch that was a short fall from panic as she sat there, doing nothing. The two boys looked at each other in query and shrugged an answer. Like a pair of mechanical toys that the rich could afford to spoil their children with, she thought acidly. Hell if she was going to sit here a moment longer than was necessary. “Where is Noshiar?” she demanded roughly. He just better show in the next moment or she was gone. There was no need for her to sit here like a lady in waiting while he finished his work. Furthermore, she refused to.
“He should be along soon”, one of the mechanical toys whispered.
“I’m leaving. Tell Noshiar if it was a lady in waiting he wanted to marry a royal!”
She knew her outburst was owed to her emotionally charged memories crashing in on her. If she just had something to do she’d be fine. Instead, here she perched, on a hard wooden stool glaring at a scarred wooden table in the presence of pubescent boys that she could kill quicker than they could blink and she ought to be grateful for it. At least she was safe.
She rose to leave at the exact moment the flimsy door swung open and a large man with thick, dark hair strode in, commanding the boys’ attention like a Sergeant in the Sovereign's militia. He lowered midnight blue eyes to fasten upon her irritated face and then broke into a broad grin, reminiscent of her father’s. Her breath whooshed out of her and she returned to her seat, mind full of questions and ideas and schemes and plans.
The time had come to plan the hunt.
“Can I offer you a cup of mead?” Noshiar asked with a grin as he lowered himself to sit across from her. The boys had been dismissed and sent home and it was just her and Noshiar in the small house.
“No, thank you”, she declined. It wouldn’t do for her to be intoxicated – even a little bit – when the time came for her to do her job. “Just the information will do if you’d be so kind”.
“Right you be,” he announced, reaching for a cup and pouring himself a cup of what was apparently mead from a mid-sized pitcher on the corner of the table. His large hand wrapped around the jug like it was one of those slender flutes wealthy women drank wine from at formal dinner occasions. The mug was tin and large and he filled it half way, pausing to breathe the smell in and then continued to pour until it was but a scant inch from the top.
“We have daemons in this place,” he told her boldly. “That is why we wanted a daemon hunter”.
The night was empty of all the usual sounds one expected to hear. Its very stillness filled her with fear. The utter black of the night surrounded her on all sides as she hurried in the general direction of home. She must hurry, before it was too late. Time, her father had told her once, was everything. Given enough time, one could rule the world.
Ruling the world was far from her thoughts right now. All she had to do was get home and everything would be ok. She could imagine her father’s angry grunt when she walked in the door, two hours late. Again. Seemed that she was always late now. She was leaving earlier and earlier in the mornings and coming home later and later. The bakery was doing good business and they needed her. And she needed the meagre allowance she was paid to slave herself from morning ‘til night if her family was to eat this winter.
Her mother was only a frail thing. She had been told and warned against having any more children once she had had her first. Her body simply could not take any more strain. But things happen. And so her mother found herself with child twice more. Between looking after the family and raising the children, her mother had no time to work the fields surrounding the cosy cottage they lived in.
Her father had long been drafted into service for the local Baron and so the fields went untilled, unplanted and unused. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the Baron offered his men anything of value. Instead, they each got a shiny uniform and helm, seventeen silver vidros a week and a chance to “serve their country”.
All she had to do was get home. If she got home soon her father might not give her a whipping. She might rise in the morning without the added hindrance of a pair of welted, red legs. Her father only did it to keep her from running wild, she reminded herself. And the two younger children would completely run her mother ragged if they thought they could get away with it.
The sound of a night owl filled the darkened skies and she jumped, nervous. A short giggle erupted from her lips before she caught herself and decided that making any noise out here at night was asking for trouble. There were bandits and wild animals and all sorts of dangers to a twelve year old girl. She’d be best keeping silent as she could manage. Flicking her chin-length black hair, she let her long legs carry her along, her dainty, bare feet padding softly on the packed earth.
Eventually she came to the little stream by the shade of an old oak tree that her father used for fishing on the warmer days of summer. She could wash up here quickly and be home in less than ten minutes. Her mother would soothe any anger out of her father once they heard that she was to get a pay rise. Two extra copper vidros a week. That would be enough to buy a store of grain for the winter if they were careful. Very careful.
The gentle lapping of the stream snapped her attention back to the here and now and she dipped a finger in, testing its chill and wondering if maybe her mother would let her draw water from the well to heat instead. She’d heard that one of the local boys had lost a finger to frost bite from washing in the stream in autumn.
From her place, crouching in the mud of the bank she heard the door to the cottage slam with a force and quickly decided against asking for so much as a mug of water from the well. Her father was obviously in a temper. Sucking in a breath, she hurriedly scrubbed at her hands and arms in the frigid water, tensing when it came into contact with the sensitive skin on the inside of her elbow. Her breath bloomed in foggy tendrils as she rose, preparing herself for the scene to come.
She could almost feel the burn of her father’s leather belt on the backs of her thighs as she swiftly trudged along. The biting sting of the first crack, soon followed by the muted numbness of her skin defending itself against such a powerful onslaught. It only ever lasted for a few moments. But, while it was happening, it felt like forever.
A scream split the air as she reached the perimeter of the garden. It was a short run from here to the house and she tensed, body automatically going into fight or flight stance…
Lanta woke with a general feeling of apprehension. Something was wrong. She’d been having the dreams again. They had stopped a few years ago only to resurface this last spring. Why?
Shaking the sleep from her face, she rose and went to the nearby stream to wash and gather water for breakfast. Perhaps it was the sound of the stream that had brought on her dreams again. But she’d slept by many streams the last few years and never once had that dream again. The thought that it might be due to the fact that she was nearing the outskirts of her old town, her old home and her old dreams, occurred to her in passing.
Possibly.
A gentle snickering brought her attention upon Zephyr, who was tied to the nearest tree by the ribbon of water cutting through the dense woodland. He would be hungry now too. It was almost dawn and she intended to be packed up and gone by the time the first ray hit her campsite. She could never be too careful. That she had fallen asleep bothered her. She had meant to stay awake longer. She guessed that it had been around three of the morning when she drifted off.
Four hours later and here she was, with this nasty feeling of having missed something important. But then again, she felt that way about any sleep she was forced to take. If she was forced by her flimsy humanity to sleep at all, she preferred it to be during the daylight hours when the only things she had to fear were some raggedy bandits or some fleas when, on a rare occasion she slept at an inn.
Bandits, she could deal with. Falling asleep outside, in the middle of the night, she disliked, but could deal with that when it happened too. But those dreams. She hated them and feared them twice as much. It was a bad omen, in her opinion for her to have that dream so close to her old home. Where things had gone so drastically wrong.
Zephyr drank greedily after his breakfast of oats and while Lanta washed her plate and mug she began to think back on her past. She thought of all the people she had loved and lost that one night. And all the people she had met since. Some of them would still be singing her praises she knew. But it meant nothing to her. Nothing. How could she feel anything but a raw, burning resentment after what had happened? Was she supposed to carry on with her life as if her whole existence hadn’t been ripped from her on that dark, desperate night?
The bread and cheese she had nibbled at turned to bile in her stomach and she stood abruptly, making Zephyr shy away in the face of her obvious bad mood. “I’m sorry, boy,” she crooned, suitably chastened. She hadn’t meant to frighten poor Zephyr, who had been the only true friend she’d had since she was twelve.
Figuring it was past time that she was gone she packed away her breakfast things, rolled up her blankets and swung herself into Zephyr’s comfortable saddle.
Things would be better once she got away from this place, with its memories and ghosts.
The little town of Somer’s End soon came into view. Squatting like a dwarf amongst the higher hills of the surrounding towering Teeth. Memories of playing amongst the rubble at the foot of the nearest mountain came to her, shocking in its clarity and harsh in its detail. Her entire childhood was spent in the adjacent area, some of it stark and cruel and more of it merry and filled with the youthful enthusiasm that only a child can have.
The dense green of the waist high grass trickled over the land towards the valley that Somer’s End was situated in, populated by wild flowers and plants and the welcoming scent of lavender and wood smoke. She could almost expect her father to come thrashing up the sloped hillside to berate her for being late for lunch. She could taste the crumbly, sweet bread her mother made every morning and smell the succulent meat boiling in a pot hanging over the open fire.
Shouts of ghostly children that were her siblings could almost be heard by her wistful ear and she sighed, feeling the deep melancholy that this strip of the earth always brought to her. A giant golden eagle soared above her and Zephyr, heading back to its nest and its family. Even that small work of wonder made Lanta sad. With a deep breath and a gentle tap of Zephyr’s flank they were off, headed toward Guardians knew what and a sense of extreme menace.
She’d heard the stories and the rumours. She knew there was something here to hunt. And hunt it she would.
Villagers of varying degrees of decline and misery greeted her appearance with wide-eyed stares and common scepticism. Used to this type of welcome, Lanta held her head high and pretended that this was just another town. Any other town. Just another place with a problem she could solve and earn good coin doing so. This place was not her home. Not anymore. If it ever really was.
The Baron was dead, and this was not common knowledge. If it were to reach the ears of the Sovereign or any of his agents, the town was lost. While a dreadful pig, the old Baron was, at least, fair. Guardians knew what a new Baron would do to the townspeople and their families. Lanta knew, of course, having been told by the appointed “leader” of the village in a missive that had reached her a fortnight ago.
The said missive had been carted all around the Realm of Noshiahei in the hopes of finding the right person to deliver it to. It had found Lanta in the bustling town of Tempulleigh in the hands of a vastly inexperienced and bone-tired herald.
She had left with the next tide upon a small goods ship bound for Teraaslier, fully paid for by the leader and the villagers. Everything had been explained in the missive. All apart from whom the leader actually was. This, she was desperately waiting to be informed of.
There were quite a few people in the town that might remember her, but even more that would not. In a mid-sized village such as Somer’s End, turnover was high as the harsh winters claimed life after life and the Baron was not one to sit and twiddle his thumbs awaiting a new generation to reach adulthood. He had come up with a scheme whereupon the death of a family in its entirety, he would send word to the great capital Teraaslier for a family to be brought. There was land to tend to, and profit to make. And, of course, taxes to pay to the Baron.
An anxious fist took hold of her throat and seized it tight when a face she had thought never to see again reeled out from the inn. Nordan, drunk as a youth on midsummer’s night lurched into the street and proceeded towards the old, ramshackle building he called home. His intoxicated gait staggered two and fro as he teetered at the doorway, trying to unlatch the door. One of the younger men in the crowd noticed Lanta glaring in Nordan’s direction and swiftly unlatched the entrance for him, hustling him inside as if by her stare alone she might cause him to die.
Fear. That was another emotion she was used to when arriving at a new town with a new problem. Fear bred like rabbits amongst the small minded and defenceless, seeding doubt in everyone and everything that would usually cause no more stir than a fist fight in a raucous whore house.
No one person would meet her eye and she wondered if she were to leap off Zephyr right at that moment, would they scatter like grains of sand in the wind or merely drop dead on the spot from fright.
Neither, she discovered a moment later when she did just that. A few wide eyes turned saucer-like and most of the faces paled. But there was a steely determination in most that told her they would hold their ground and die before giving up their newfound lease of freedom. She admired that in these pitiful men and women. Admired that they would go to all the trouble to find one such as her and bring her here with nothing more than her word that she was trustworthy. They were desperate. And she was the last hope for the desperate. She would not let them down.
“Who is leader here?” she asked, abruptly to be met with blank faces and bewildered frowns. “Who sent forth this missive I hold in my hands?” Lanta held the parchment up high so as to let them all get a good, long look at it. Rapt faces eyed the piece of parchment in wonder, no doubt cheerful that their emissary had reached his goal and that he had found someone to help them.
“Noshiar!” screeched one elderly woman, pulling the tattered shawl closer about her face, hiding herself lest she be thought a traitor for letting the information flow from her gap toothed mouth.
Lanta nodded slowly. Noshiar, indeed. He had been but a boy when Lanta was last here, fifteen years ago. But then again, she had been just a girl. She supposed he’d be almost twenty five now and in his prime. A life in Somer’s End was a hard one. Gruelling work and austere weather conditions conspired to end lives relatively early in this part of the Realm. “Lead me to him”, she requested with a sigh. The hard part was about to begin.
The cloying scent of wood smoke hung heavy in the air of the cottage as Lanta seated herself in front of a large, scarred table cluttered with the remnants of an early morning breakfast. Obviously living alone, Noshiar was not very house proud. Evidence of his hastily swept floor and grime thickened window by the rumpled bed showed that he was a busy man with no time for house keeping.
Lanta relaxed in the knowledge that this was a sincere man. You could tell a lot about a person by visiting their home. And this home, with its scantily scrubbed appearance put her at ease. Busy, hardworking, honest, modest and genuine, she felt sure they’d get on famously. If he ever showed up, that was.
She had been sitting here, nervously watched over by two young men with shaking fingers and twitching lips. They were afraid of her. Afraid of what she did for a living. Terrified that the darkness that had infested her life would leak out and soil them somehow. She smiled widely at them both and relaxed in satisfaction as their faces paled dramatically. They would be so easy to escape. Easy enough that she knew these men were here for observation and not enforcement. Noshiar was apparently working the back field and would be along “any time now”. She was beginning to resent this meeting.
She hated the fact that she was less than a twenty minute jog from her old stone cottage and her old cruel memories. She hated that she felt compelled and obliged to come back here to this simpering little village with its small town ideals and its small minded people. She hated that she was sitting here with two boys that were petrified to breathe the same air as her lest they be infected with hopelessness and insignificance. Her face had a monotonous grin and she hated wearing it, the falsity of it all. When all she really wanted to do was get the facts, go on the hunt, get paid and leave this place and these people.
Her breathing increased to a pitch that was a short fall from panic as she sat there, doing nothing. The two boys looked at each other in query and shrugged an answer. Like a pair of mechanical toys that the rich could afford to spoil their children with, she thought acidly. Hell if she was going to sit here a moment longer than was necessary. “Where is Noshiar?” she demanded roughly. He just better show in the next moment or she was gone. There was no need for her to sit here like a lady in waiting while he finished his work. Furthermore, she refused to.
“He should be along soon”, one of the mechanical toys whispered.
“I’m leaving. Tell Noshiar if it was a lady in waiting he wanted to marry a royal!”
She knew her outburst was owed to her emotionally charged memories crashing in on her. If she just had something to do she’d be fine. Instead, here she perched, on a hard wooden stool glaring at a scarred wooden table in the presence of pubescent boys that she could kill quicker than they could blink and she ought to be grateful for it. At least she was safe.
She rose to leave at the exact moment the flimsy door swung open and a large man with thick, dark hair strode in, commanding the boys’ attention like a Sergeant in the Sovereign's militia. He lowered midnight blue eyes to fasten upon her irritated face and then broke into a broad grin, reminiscent of her father’s. Her breath whooshed out of her and she returned to her seat, mind full of questions and ideas and schemes and plans.
The time had come to plan the hunt.
“Can I offer you a cup of mead?” Noshiar asked with a grin as he lowered himself to sit across from her. The boys had been dismissed and sent home and it was just her and Noshiar in the small house.
“No, thank you”, she declined. It wouldn’t do for her to be intoxicated – even a little bit – when the time came for her to do her job. “Just the information will do if you’d be so kind”.
“Right you be,” he announced, reaching for a cup and pouring himself a cup of what was apparently mead from a mid-sized pitcher on the corner of the table. His large hand wrapped around the jug like it was one of those slender flutes wealthy women drank wine from at formal dinner occasions. The mug was tin and large and he filled it half way, pausing to breathe the smell in and then continued to pour until it was but a scant inch from the top.
“We have daemons in this place,” he told her boldly. “That is why we wanted a daemon hunter”.
