LuckyD

And yet Relad had not gotten the news, yet. How strange, to not see her for these few days. Still, she had come back from the impossible before, and she was a grown woman. Surely, she was just out. Why, he would tear apart the world if anything happened to her. Surely the gods would never be so terribly cruel. Mmm. A shame the world is cruel, anyway. When he does notice, there can only be the hope that his community will be a support to the ailment of the mind to follow.

What had it been now, twenty years? A speck of time in the grand scheme of things, one might suppose. After all, at the end of the day, all Relad was happened to be a man who moved to Norland after being a serf for a while. He had faith, he supposed, and good friends alongside him. Still, he had grown more and more reclusive in recent years, more and more did the Orison fall into deep prayer as if seeking answers that he would simply never be given. It was a strange how the Allfadir had kept so silent, as if He never truly was there at all. The Paragons, too, no longer answered him verbally as they once did. Perhaps he had been told all he needed to be, perhaps he truly never managed to atone for his forced actions, or perhaps he simply couldn't believe he was worthy anymore. A new age under Imperial Rule. Azuras had been under the Empire in all regions he had lived in since he arrived here, so this was no great change. He did wonder if now may finally be the time to ask for a parcel of land, not to rule as a lord, or to build a great fortress of stone upon, but to have erected a Clan Hall where he and his family may finally have what was once lost. His eyes close, his mind shifts to the face of Lorena once more as he ponders aloud; "...I wonder if you would recall, Miss Senna, asking if they work me harder than even you were. I think, now, that I had been working myself that hard. I only hope you may forgive me, from your place wherever you lay, for taking so long to understand." Relad was now fifty six years old. A third the way through his life, if all went well, and still had never truly accomplished much in his own eyes. He would never be a grand king, never feel responsible or worthy to hold high position in his Faith again, and never would he accomplish the great feat that Hadrian had today. Perhaps that was okay. Not all people are important in those ways. He mattered to those who needed him to matter, he was loved by those who he loved, and loved by some who he was unaware felt in that way. Truly, so far, this life of struggle had not been such a bad one. "...I hope you look down at our farm when we finally own a place of our own again and visit, even as only the wind, or the light of the sun. I know you will stop by, Miss Senna, and be happy for a moment. I hope I may finally be happy then, too." Whispered he, before once more opening the door to the Clan Hall he had recently needed to move out of. A new home. A fresh view. Somewhere different, perhaps. Somewhere warmer, or colder, or higher, or lower. Wherever it is, his homestead will be under the eye of Hadrian's Empire, and with that gaze the Once-Serf would hope that the honor of Imperials he had known survived the true threat to any Empire: A lack of expansion. Woe to thee, so say all Elders, to those who turn brother against brother. The Orison is glad to see an age of bloodshed ended. He never assumed the Empire would lose, anyway, as it was a logistic impossibility for their enemies to win. A candle lit for the Dwarves, out of respect for their willingness to fight for their beliefs and stubborn ideals. The Dragon has it's Horde, now. The Orison only hopes his family might enjoy working the dirt beside the mound of wealth, unaccosted.

"I think you would have liked to meet her, Lorena." Said a tired Relad, reading over the missive a moment. He was still practicing his Connection, but he felt he was truly on a breakthrough. It had been strange that thinking of her was more effective than of the Allfadir. He hopes that if any child is born into a family like Lorena was, they find refuge there, even if she never got that chance.

Relad had been at the battle, the scarred Norn surveying the end result. Less than five minutes from arrival to end. Was this it? Was this all their Alliance had to offer? It left him with no pride to cut them down, only a wonder as to why they died on this hill. There was no honor in suicide.

It was hard to tell where the woman he knew ended and when Lorena began. He had just spent the last few days working to gather his things for the journey. It would be today that he rode for Idunia, to get help. He needed that, needed help. Corann, perhaps he could help. Corann knew all sorts of magic, but for that he would need to go to Petra. The Templars? They were as likely to kill her as help her if they got involved. Perhaps Veta would know what to do? Veta was used to strange things like this, surely- Njàll? At the gate? Seems he was with a pair of people. Relad would walk over, apologizing again for how he had treated him when they last spoke. He was angry, hopeful, upset, all kinds of things at the news that Lorena lived. Revekka held him back like a collage kid after one too many drinks and Njàll never deserved to have to be looked at the way Relad had looked at him. The woman beside him would close the distance to Relad then, lifting his helm. The truth was that Relad was so exhausted, so weary from the nights of little to no sleep this last week that he hardly managed to even register the action enough to stop it. "God, are they working you harder than I did?" That voice took a few seconds to fully set in, but once it did Relad felt quite like he had taken a blow to the head. He took her by the shoulders more to convince himself she was real than anything else. Feelings buried for years bubbled just below the surface, things that had festered for so many nights. Even now, she was still the one with a wider view of the world and more wisdom than he gathered in the near ten years since he last saw her. Lorena took Relad by the arm, leading him to the tavern, out of the clinging rain. It was not a warm evening, or a warm gaze that she held when finally she sat. The two spoke, then. Mostly it was Relad's disbelief that she lived, regret simmering up in his throat like bile. Despite every apology, every protest, her gentle voice and soft hands even despite that sullen gaze she now wore - they reached out to comfort him. Words of affirmation, of that guilt was not his own, and that he, too, had in some ways been missed. The following was a rush, for him. As Lorena left, again, of all the words they spoke to one another a singular interact had echoed fearcely in his mind. "You know you always have a place at my table, miss Senna. Why did you never come? Why have you been alone so long?" He had asked, and her words to him were haunting, indeed. "I did. I went to the farm, but I could not find you." Relad had no real way to know she would return after death. After all, none else in his life ever had. But still, that pang of regret at having fled the Empire after her death so rashly, knowing that had led her to living this secluded life she now did? The decision after she left him in the Alefather to return to this new life she had chosen was something he felt almost pushed by fate itself to make. He looked to the High Keeper, stood, and with all the shaking courage he could muster he would say four words, unknowing how much they would change his life; "I wish for Drowning." Thusly did he march with passion and sorrow to the Hearth Temple. Determination was bubbling within him. Never again, never fail someone you love. Not Revekka. Not Rori. Not Lorena. His hands did not shake, his voice did not tremble, and as he stood watching the waters of the pool the echoes of a dozen-and-dozen footfalls of the citizens of Verdegrad gathering to observe dulled into silence. Down went his armor, stripped to gambison. Away went his bag, dropped to the ground. Ringing in the ears, blood rushing. The High Keeper spoke words he had listened to as an observer once before. He walked forward. Few words at all were shared between the High Keeper Sissle and himself, only a momentary glance that shared enough to tell her all she needed to know. Relad was ready to die. A heavy urn embossed with Nordic symbols was placed into his hands and with an exhale of the breath he held, then, did he fall forward. Relad would allow the weight of the urn to drag him and hold him down. Now was the time one should have reached to a Paragon, now was the time when prayer was to be made for the strength to stay under. Thirty seconds. The burning has not yet begun, but the pressure has built. His grip is firm. Relad would recede into the darkest corners of his mind, digging into memories he beloved. There, past the stinging eyes, the urn transformed into her abdomen, his knuckles white against her dress as she rode across the land. Grass and wheat, stone and mountain alike were but streaks of color as the two rolled along. She spoke to him of mining, of the state of wars that undoubtably were to come, and of how wonderful it was to work for the betterment of good people. Sixty seconds. The High Keeper had expected fully to have seen Relad rise from the waters by now, but he had not so much as moved. A dawning upon her, then, that this could be something of a miracle. Perhaps, yes, perhaps indeed there was more below the cowardice and guilt that riddled this man. May the waters wash them away. Relad knew as the burning in his lungs began that he had to maintain his grip. His eyes shut, color blooming behind them in patters of spotty petals that pulse and ebb from the pressure of it all. He forces his hands through the handles of the Urn, gripping tightly upon it. Not even he notices the blood that trickles up from the water where the etchings have begun to cut into his palms. The dislocation of the thumb hardly registers past the pain in his chest. He was somewhere else, despite all this. It was the field, his hands aching as they always had after having tilled by his lonesome. Other farmhands worked Lorena de Senna's lands, but never did he see them. Dinner was tonight, she promised she would sit with him and enjoy the spoils of the new harvest this evening. Wiping the dirt onto his slacks, Relad wandered down the road to Rittersberg. The pain in his hands grew worse, then, as he felt his nails dig into his own bleeding palm. There she was, beaten by the Inquision of the time. There she kneels, head upon the block screaming that Relad had done no wrong. There she fell silent as the military at the time pushed him onto a horse. The mines were next, plucking away at ore to earn the horse she had already bought for him. All the while, that white-knuckled grip never left. One hundred and twenty seconds. Two minutes. Those observing had been gripped by a fear, curiosity, and sort of sick fascination. By now the crowd had grown to even those who did not know him, all wondering if he was indeed alive. Just as some folk were near to protest that surely Relad had died with no struggle, perhaps hit his head at the bottom, it came. Red light filled the Hearth Temple. The Red Comet had begun to pass, leaving crimson reflections upon the waters. It was then, in the following minute of stunned silence that Relad finally saw it. One hundred and eighty seconds. Three minutes. In Relad's very own words to the High Keeper after the conclusion of the ritual, some days later, he would try desperately to explain the following ten seconds. "The Allfather looked back at me, never before had I felt so small. Like a flickering candle set before the light of a city aflame. Yet, in that moment, I realized he had truly seen me. From all his responsibility, from the duty of his eternal battle, he took that moment to look upon me." "It is not a matter of what I believed I was, before. I have been Seen. Acknowledged by the Allfather himself, seen for something more. I have a duty to prove that I was worthy of such a thing, to others yes, but to myself most of all." "Through my eyes the Allfather's Light will cast down the minions of the Dark. Through His guidance may my soul find it's way to His armies to continue the good fight." "A passing glance to some, perhaps. But it was life-altering, for me." "Be the man the Allfather wishes to have at His side, Relad Orison." But before the end of the ritual, thus, what he had seen was darkness. Endless dark, cut away only by a figure wreathed in light and fire. The Allfadir, there he was appearing before Relad at the edge of death. No words were shared, only a singular, fleeting contact of gaze. He saw his god and his god saw him. Affirmation, validation, expectation. No Paragon before him, no Ancestor. Him. When finally Relad broke from the water, coughing, sputtering, his muscles had near all life sapped from them. The Red Comet had passed, only traces of what those afore had seen of this miracle remaining in the tense air of the room. Relad used what remained of his strength to lift the Urn above his head and just when his body was about to fully give out, the High Keeper swung the Boomsteel Hammer to it. The Urn would explode into shards, sand within falling upon Relad in his rebirth. Initiate, Acolyte, Faithful. Cheering from many drowned out the ringing of blood rushing in his ears as the High Keeper instructed a pair to help him to his feet again. Relad would ask for Livius Flavius, dedicating 1,000 Mina to Norland on the spot - nearly his entire savings since coming to this continent. He had meaning, now. He would not fail these good people he so beloved. Not like he had others. In the following four years, Relad Orison would be invited to live in Solgaard as a Norn properly. He would watch his sister finally grow into her own woman, even finding a man she seems at the moment of writing keen to be wed to. Relad would partake in battles of the war between the Empire and Four Brothers. Relad would speak to Kings and Princes, Queens and Princesses. He would Ward under the Princes of Idunia to set the cobblestones for a better future between Idunia and Norland. He would train harder than ever before. Why, he would even join with Darona's guild of Monster Hunters in the city of Viru. Most recently, he would experience the pain of losing mobility in his legs before the grace of the Shamans from Idunia, to Norland, to the Empire all each took part in his slow cycle of healing. He had met many good people, made many better friends, and learned much more of the world than ever a simple farmer might know. Patience, restraint, honor, duty, dignity, charity, responsibility beyond what he ever believed himself capible. Relad Orison was a Serf no longer. Head of Agriculture of Norland. Guardsmen and Auxilury of the Northern Host. Acolyte of the Red Faith. Hunter of the Gremio Cazadores. Norland's Cultural Representative of Idunia, Ward of The Idunian Royalty. Norn of the strong men and stronger women of Solgaard. Uncle. Older brother. Friend Llir. Solider. Merchant. All these things more than a simple man, now. Yet still, he must do more. He must do all he can for the people who have done so, so much for him. As Relad sits at his new home, tending a fire in Solgaard, his thoughts of the emptiness prevail. Revekka lived with Wayde now. Rori had been at sea for years. Newt, his new neice, visited only fleetingly. Some elves had come to work for him, wayward and inexperienced folk, staying in his guest rooms and helping to stock his shops. In that moment of loneliness, when the house is quiet, Relad reaches for something very, truly special. From swirling mist would come a woman, someone whom he had only just recently gotten to know, but who he felt knew all of his life. Her voice dripped like the sweetest of honey, her personality bubbly as the most mirthful child that ever he had met, and her demenor so purely good that he had known they would achieve great things even on first meeting. As soon as she appeared, her words flowed from her aquamarine lips like a song. "What do ya wish for, boss?" Relad paused, then, sitting on the edge of his bed and gesturing to the portrait of Lorena afore the wall. The paint had faded over the years, but still that woman was beautiful as the day they rode the countryside. "...I wish to make a world where people like her are happy. Where my siblings do not need me to check under their bed for monsters. Where the dark is no longer a thing to fear, in the hearts of men, or in the body of Grendel-kin." Spoke Relad, gazing at the painting. He would watch his new friend touch it, her fingers tracing gently the intricate work of art. "Alrighty. Let's do it. You can count on me, boss!" When finally Relad fell asleep again, for the first time in a very long time, he was excited for tomorrow. Perhaps it was the oppertunity at hand, perhaps it was knowing he finally had the power to do good on a scale bigger than himself, perhaps it was just a happiness to have met someone who finally believed in the world he dreamed of giving people. Whatever it was, Relad would dream that night, and the dreams were of full bellies for all the world, of kindness among Descendants, and of the spreading of happiness. Lorena, he thinks, would like to see a dream like that be real. Somewhere in his mind, he hopes she visits again for that dinner they never had. Somewhere deeper, still, he hopes she found the peace she was looking for. Then, even deeper, in the furthest corners, ths touch of his new friend's soul upon his own was a warm comfort that he had not felt since he was a boy. The comfort of seeing the world not as something to struggle against, but as something to be made better than he had been born into it by the time he finally has to leave.

His heart felt like it had been torn from his chest. His lips were dry, his hands as he fumbled for the handle of his home would not - COULD not stop shaking. Trembling. Those terrible tremors flowing up and down his body. Relad went up the stairs, for tonight he did not tend the fire. He barely registers Revekka taking care of it in the minutes to come. He collapses on the floor, not on his bed, or into a chair - but onto the hardwood. There was the painting. Lorenna's eyes upon him again. That gaze which had always held so much comfort, such warmth. He had studied it so much over these last ten years. The room felt as though it was swaying around him, churning with his bubbling emotions as he sunk into a pathetic heap of a man upon his floor. It felt to Relad in that moment as if the very home he built was going to swallow him whole, the floorboards pulling him lower until his nose pressed painfully to the unforgiving oak. His eyes squeezed shut then so tightly that colors flashed in his blinded vision. There were hot streaks of fire that danced along the edges of his gaze, the veins of his eyelids from the pressure of his palms - that is what it must have been. At some point in this anguished, soundless moment he must have pressed his hands to his eyes. A man five years from fifty clenched his teeth together so hard his gums may have bled. His scream was not of sound, but of air catching in the throat only interrupted occassionally by a deep, desperate, choking gasp. Relad's muscles felt like they would tear thenselves apart as he turned upon his side, resisting the urge to vomit, swallowing back the hot bile in his throat. His ringing ears subsided enough for him to finally register the deep, loud inhaling and exhaling of his nose. He latched onto that sound, that feeling, focusing on the rythem of it. Something he could control, something he knew was real. Relad stayed this way for several long, agonizing minutes. Broken. Shattered. Weak. Pained. Then, it melted into a less primal thing. It melted into anguish. Into hot, stinging tears. Into terrible, burning sobs that tore his throat as he muffled them with the crook of his arm for fear his siblings would hear them. The primal agony had melted into a full, total meltdown. Relad would lie there under her gaze again, crying. Sobbing. The shuddering spasms of his body were the only things that reminded him to breathe past pushing his arm against his jaw and nose hard enough to nearly break them. After minutes more, finally, he could form words again. Finally grief had not taken his ability to speak away, like it had to her. "...you're alive..." Those two words caused another fit. Another wave of agonizing grief that hit him harder than any blow he had taken since her death. Fury took hold, not at her, but at himself. She lived. She lived and he left her to suffer while he built a life in her memory? The books flew from shelves, a table brought upon it's side, sheets torn from the bed, chairs swung across the room. He could not make a sound, crashing his body into a frenzy of action. "You are ALIVE!?" There it was. A scream. The world 'alive' left his throat like vomiting glass, drawn-out was it so that he grew horse of voice in his collapse once again to the floor. "I am so sorry, Miss Senna. Allfather, Lorenna, I am so sorry!" He begged. He was sure he was looking up at her portrait again, but his vision was so blurred by tears that he could only make out dull swashes of color. "I left you...Allfather...you have suffered, I left you for dead, Lorenna..." "You, who I so respected, who gave me a life, who shaped me into who I am now. You! You have been wandering the WOODS, alone, anguished, while I have built this life hopeful I might make your spirit proud of the man I became!" Came his confession, then. Broken, ashamed. Afraid. "Lorenna, I - I did everything because I wanted to be the man you made me feel like I could be. I became the Agricultural Head of a nation. I rebuilt the bridges with my family. I faught off a Demon. I have spoken to Kings, Emperors, Queens, Beggars. A true...part of my community. I have become more than anything I ever could have without you, BECAUSE I wished to honor what you saw in me!" A knock at the door, he did not hear it. Perhaps Revekka or Rori had come, perhaps they had woken from the noise. On he went, for he spoke with the conviction of a man who had his world turned upon it's head. "I found faith because of losing you, Miss Senna. You, who despite blue blood shed it toiling the same fields as a Serf. You, who despite everything going wrong in your life made the time for someone who no-one else thought mattered. You, Lorenna, YOU. You are the reason I found how much more I could be!" He wailed, standing up. In a flurry of emotion and choking desperation he would take the portrait from the wall, holding it tightly. This greaving man clung to this object as if his very life was balancd by it. Relad gripped the portrait of Lorenna de Senna as if the image of her was somehow an anchor keeping him from being swept away into the sea. "I...Allfather, I am so sorry...please, forgive me. Please be okay. Allfather, Lorenna, I let you suffer for ten years...ten years...please be okay. Please. Please." Begged the man. He was pleading, clutching the painting in a room sorrounded by broken furnature. "Njáll, he - he said you were alive. Why did you never come here? I promised you, you would be safe. You would have a place at my table, always, Lorenna. You were my mentor, my friend, you inspired me to be a better man." "...please, Miss Senna, please. I do not know what to do. I - I do not know how to find you, I do not know if you would even know me, anymore." Muttered he, shivering, sobbing. "...Lorenna...I am so, so terribly sorry...Allfather, this is all my fault, if I had only searched...if I had not accepted your death so firmly, I- Allfather, what do I do? Please, I cannot do this on my own." Asked Relad, tearing his gaze from her portrait to look upon the burning candle in his room. "Allfather, I beg you. Just...please, this once, please. I cannot do this alone. I am not strong enough, I am not a wise enough man, I have never been. The...the High Keeper, she said I may be a Paragon in death. The warriors of Norland tell me I have been as brave as the best of them. But...but I- Allfather, I failed to save even one woman who meant so much." Begging his god for light to guide him in the deepest of darkness he had found himself in, the flickering candle did not move. Why would it? The Allfather had likely seen men in this grief before, why would Relad be different? "Allfather...please, just...please. if I find her, stay my hand. Please give me the strength to save her. I...I do not have it. My flame is not bright enough to guide her home. Not yet. Not now. Please, help her, Allfather. Guide her though the cold, like you have me, like you had the good folk before." Still, the flame only flickers. Relad spoke to an empty room. Relad begged the wrong god. He never knew who or what Lorenna followed. Silence fell, then, as desperarion turned to a cold, terrible quiet. "...I miss you, Miss Senna...but...but please...please, I beg fate he was lying to me. You deserve the peace you earned. You deserve to sleep." A beat of the heart. "If...if I see you again, Miss Senna, I will do whatever I must to give you peace. If you are a madwoman suffering, I will end it. If you are a spirit lost, I will guide you. If you are injured, I will carry you upon my back." A breath of air. "It is my turn, Lorenna. I need to help you, now, don't I? Like I should have." A nail in the wall. "...please, hold on. I promise you, I will not let you down again." A vow. "I beg you, wait a little while longer, Miss Senna." A request. "Allfather, watch over me as I do what must be done." A plea. "To love is to lose. To lose is to live. To live is to be loved." An oath. She deserves all the happiness he has built to be shared. He will ensure it is. It was because of Lorenna that he was where he was today. He means to thank her properly.

Relad was brought up to speed about as quickly as a stern mule is made to drink, but by the Allfather's grace and patience he does understand. "Head of Agriculture?" He had asked the High Fleeper herself. Relad had never expected to be someone important in his life, let alone leading the foundational building blocks for something this important. "Does that make me a member of the Red Council like good Livius or Iulius?" The once-serf would have dozens of questions, but time will be the woman to answer them, perhaps not the busy High Keeper. Still, he took the role with pride and the ease of knowing he would just be doing more of what he already loved to do.

"Why did I learn to read just to realize half my mail is junk?" Relad said, allowing the slow, tentative sigh to escape his nose as he crumpled the paper and tossed it into the fireplace. Wonder if they would execute this one in front of their family with next to no attempt to allow anyone to speak on their behalf, too. Hm. Nah, they didn't steal horses and immediately return them. Whoever this was would surely only be shot after a trial in front of their family.

Relad took a mild moment as this news reached his house. Good for them, he supposed, but his sister would not be part of that dreadful machine. Hopefully.

Relad was sat in his home when the news arrived, hearing the caller in the street spread the word. The death of another good man. A repreve from a long life of hardship. "Norland is always a cold place for these people, it seems. Rest. You will never be cold again. Your struggle is over, you did enough. Let the younger generation pick up the slack you leave behind." Said he to none in particular, taking a modest moment to glance at the wall where the portrait of Lorenna De Senna was hung. He imagined that this man held the same level of love and respect by others that he held for her. "If by some chance you hear this, Master of Revelry, you should teach Miss Senna to relax more. Whenever and wherever you both are. I think you two might get along well." Back to cutting the apples, Rori was not going to cook for himself. His younger brother was terrible at that, and these grim events are reminders that as he breaks fourty, Relad himself is no wry young man anymore. Perhaps he should teach Rori how to make pie.

I have no interest in moderation; I only want to say you have wonderful taste in Animal Crossing characters. Keep up the Belle representation, gamer.

Animal husbandry and farming was my entire character concept, I am beyond happy to know that I may be able to have a farm again that has some real meat on it's bones mechanically as something to do while waiting for passerby to chat with.

Relad would read over the missive, sat in the gatehouse of Verdegrad. Shame, he had really liked that one Dwarf he met some weeks ago, and they seemed a fine enough people. Still, it seemed men younger and more ambitious were destined to be the ones in power, supported by men older and more experienced than he. The missive was pinned to the wooden wall with a tac as Relad continued to stoke the fire. Norland never seemed to get any warmer. He only hoped he would not have to turn folk away more often now than he had before.