LuckyD

"Well," said Relad after spending nearly thirty minutes trying to read this missive. "...why make a law and then immediately go back on it? Is the government ran by children?" Into the fireplace it went. He has never sold horses anyway.

Relad had just finished tending to one of the cattle. Goodness how time would fly, how things moved so very fast. Why, it felt at times like years slipped between his fingers like running water. He could scarcely imagine what older men must feel like, those in their sixties or seventies must feel like years have become weeks. He truly did not know how the Elves kept sane. Still, however, the topic of age was not the main thing on good Relad's mind in these recent days. He had begun the question of faith, a journey many men and women of the realm take at some point or other in their lives. Relad had been raised in a home which bore no cross, so to speak. Never was he one to claim to be a learned man, but he did remember that evening all those months ago that he tried to pray for Miss Senna. Goodness, why, he thinks he should do so again tonight. It was some hours later in the eve, then. He closed the door to his kitchen - a much larger and more grand kitchen now, he might add - and set the Ferrum bolt upon it so that none might sneak in to abscond with his oats, or even life. The crackling pop of dry wood in the fireplace was his company tonight, but he set the table for four. Hearty bread with nuts, a wooden pitcher of cool water, a whole chicken, and pumpkin pie, freshly made with a knob of butter - these were the things set before him. He still knew very little of how to properly season anything, but enough sugar in the pie and enough butter under the chicken's skin made them more than good to him. The wooden plates were set, the platter for the food placed in the center of the table. Relad sat, then, and looked to the other side. "My family has reunited, Miss Senna. I thought that to be the most important thing to tell you first." He began, rubbing a small, worn cheesecloth over the small wooden knife. No one wanted to chew a splinter, after all. "My little brother, Rorimack. Goodness, I'd not seen him in ten-odd years. You can imagine how surprised I was when I saw him on the road." "I was riding that horse, you know the one. Just about Norland, by the far passage. Who do I see but him, lost! Looking for directions, not sure which signs pointed where." Said Relad. He paused, then, to take a mild drink of his water. It was a nice feeling, talking to her like this - well, even if it was a strange thing if others might see him do it. "You might imagine I scooped him up and invited him to live here with me. Well, you would be very correct, Miss Senna. On we went, trading stories and those little sibling jabs at the pride, like when we were children. He has changed little since then." A breath, then. Cold. Lonely despite it all. "My sister, too. Well, half-sister I suppose, but she has always felt a sister to me. She arrived just yesterday. Asked to be put up. How could I deny blood? I know you'd have done the same for a stranger like me, and I think..." He muttered, recollecting his thoughts for but a moment. "...well, I think that these two have taken all my guest beds. I might need to make another." A breath, some laughter. Warm laughter. He felt a tad less alone. "They would have loved you, I like to think. But goodness enough on this, so much news, so much news, indeed. I've been learning of the Red Faith recently, why even subscribing to it. It feels good to be sorrounded by folk who see everyone as equals, like you did." A breath once more. This time, it was sullen, hollow, tired. "...they let me add your name to the tree, Miss Senna. I used your first name, I hope you wouldn't have minded." He began, swallowing the dry lump in his throat. "Even the Norlanders respected you, Lorenna. Even the people the Empire hurt so badly, when they listened to your story, the Keeper let me memorialize you with their honored dead." Relad closed his eyes, taking a slow, deep breath. The air felt cold in his lungs, not refreshing as it should. The grip came again, that familiar ice that spread through his body like worms through soil. His next question to the empty room, to the image of Miss Senna, came distant, almost disbelieving. "Do you think I've gone mad?" The room would not answer him. Why would it? There was no one there. He was speaking to an empty seat. "Rori would call me so, I might think. I have met ghosts and know you are not here, yet I speak as though you were. I convince myself you can hear me. I barter with my mind to feel as if you, the woman whom I respected and looked up to, might not be fully gone." The silence was so very loud, now. Why must the quiet always shriek so boldly? "I passed one of the De Sennas on the road today. I recognized him from that day, we spoke. He did not so much as stop to look my way, just rode his horse with a task in mind." Muttered Relad, his thumb working gently at the handle of his fork. "You must have left a lot to do in your wake. I've begun to think more of my own family and what I will leave my siblings with. I am the eldest, but..." A heartbeat, then. Not his own, but outside. They must be home. "...I suppose it matters little, now, if I am mad or not. I think of these as happy times, our talks. If you are listening, somehow, somewhere - thank you for everything you did for me. I hope my words might keep you company like your memory does for me, Miss Senna." Then, without a word more, the door opened. In came the siblings. The three of them were sat at the table. The spare plate was explained away as preperation for a guest that could arrive. The space was left open. A memory hit him, somewhere between the conversation at the table with his siblings and the warm embrace of sleep, then. His own voice. His own words, directed once to her, and time again since to others. > "Well I tell you, Miss Senna, my home and table will be open to you always." Good dreams of wheat and gold, once more. How Relad loved their little talks.

Relad, having finally stopped his running some short time ago, would have sat down in the terribly lonesome new home he had made. There was a fire cracking gently in the corner of the small entryway, the stairs leading up to the seating floor with it's poorly-sanded, handmade chairs and table. From there was a small hand-ladder up the wall, beyond which an iron grate led to his own bedroom and the attic guest room. Relad was sat at the small wooden chair in the entry next to the kitchen, thinking deeply to himself. He had plated his food already, a simple collection of leafy greens and berries from the small garden outside that was accompanied by a cooked strip of beef flank. There was little to no seasoning - salt was for preserving and testing for Darkspawn. The steam still wafted from the food, but he had found himself too terribly anxious to find an appetite. His mind was wandering into distant ideas and places far too frightfully often, he had found. Across him, another plate was set. There was a kind woman staying with him at this time, though the hours she was and was not at home were varied, she was good company and good conversation, two things Relad had not been aware how sorely he needed after all that happened. This woman had a beautiful heart, wearing a sympathetic and kind smile at near all hours. Truthfully, she lit up this new home far better than any light he had hung. However, with such busy hours that she had, he would always just leave food warm and a plate at the table for if she arrived home early. He wanted to be good to his guest, of course. "She reminds me of you." The voice that came from his lips as he sat there was his own indeed, but he had let his thoughts slip into words once again in this empty house. He had learned of God, of the Red Faith, or at least what people could spend the time to tell him. Relad still struggled to write severely and reading was very little better as he was able only to pick out very few words, so reading scripture to be educated was out of the question. She was not here, the woman his words were directed to. He had learned, recently, that prayer was for some a means to speak to those who are no longer with them. Relad would lean back in his chair, close his eyes for some few, fleeting moments. "...you would like this place, I think. I have met so many kind people here, bright hearts as your own was. The woman who stays with me now, she wept, Miss Senna." He began, opening his eyes to begin to cut his food. He spoke as if she were there with him, just across the table. "It seems all I tell your story weep, or all I tell comfort me in your loss. Would you have believed it if I were to tell you how many dozens of people told me how wonderful you would have been to meet?" "This land is wholly unfamiliar. They were weary of me as a man of the Empire, but even the scabbed child, scored and burned as you were, offers his hand to me in friendship now." He continued, setting the cutlery down and gazing at the empty chair. How he wished he could simply will her to manifest here for this conversation, to speak of the day, of harvest. "I never did thank you for saving my life, Miss Senna. You showed me what those people were like, what risk I was sliding into by working so hard for them." He muttered, before looking idly at the food he had half-cut. It was cooling down, now, but that was the furthest thing from his mind in this moment. "I worked for you, though. You were a good woman, unappreciated, overworked. I could see that, looking back on our time together. You were stronger than any of the Inquisition that bound you to that horse, braver than any of the Knights who watched your body fall limp in silence. I do not think I will ever meet another so astounding as you." "...I know you would brush these compliments aside with your thanks and ask me to stop. That was the kind of woman you were. Strong, humble, dedicated. I saw in you the kind of person I wished to be, and wonder now if, perhaps, you saw in me the person you wished you still were." The steam was gone from the room, now. Only the gentle curls of smoke from the firepit and smell of burning cedar. "I miss our talks. Do you remember when we rode that week? You showed me the mines, but I was too nervous to attempt to ride a horse of my own. You sat me upon the back of your own, those legs of that steed blurring aross the grass as the land turned to smears of color." Relad would turn to look at the fire, now, those changing hues and shadows that dance along the walls. Perhaps her shadow was there, listening. He took a breath, intent on the wish that perhaps she was. "It was beautiful, to me. A freedom that I had never truly known with a person trapped beyond what I ever knew. I wonder still if you saw our days of travel for work in the same way. I hope if you are listening now that the memories are enough to bring you the joy I felt in those days." "I am...sorry that we never got to have dinner that night, Miss Senna. I had made a pumpkin pie for you, the first of the harvest of the new crop. I think you would have liked that." Relad would take a shallow, shuddering breath then. The food had gone cold, and he took his plate to place upon the warm coals to begin to gradually reheat it. "I hope I'm living a life you would be happy to see me live, Miss Senna. If you ever return a terrible spirit upon the land, I might ask you find the time to rest here. I would invite you happily into this new home, away from those that hurt you, surrounded by people who would love your company." "You were never an opportunity to me. You were never a burden. You were never an expectation. You were never a De Senna in my eyes." "You were my hero, Miss Senna. I hope you have received a hero's rest. You have earned that and more." Relad would blink a few times. There was the familiar sting of the tears welling, again, but he swallowed the bitter sorrow down. If she was watching, he knew she would hate to see him in such grief. So, he returned to the table with his food. "...would it be selfish of me to say I miss you?" asked Relad to the room. But only the popping of the fire answered. Another breath, another beat of silence. Another breath, the consumption of dinner. Another breath, into bed. Another breath, the dreams set in. Another breath of golden fields, fresh air, and the two of them talking over morning coffee of what to plant this coming season. A good dream, tonight.

Relad had known Miss Senna for a very brief time, only a year or two. But she had been nothing but kind and gentle to him, to all she had introduced him to. She did not pry upon his own past, she thanked him for the work he did upon her farm at every interaction, and she treated him as an equal even in a subservient position. When he had gone to tell her someone had tried to break into the farm, he saw her in the window of the office of Inquisition. Who would believe the words of a serf? His toungue held the weight of cotton down. "She gave me a horse, I did not know." "She is no witch, she uses a magical necklace to speak." "She is a good woman, why is-" Then, the blade fell. The sound of the crowd clamoring for her death grew. Cheers for the Empire. Rats. Vermin, all. To so callously execute a good human being, to bind her family and have them watch. Was she defended? He did not know, for he never got the chance to speak in her defense. Relad had so much he wanted to tell her of. That he had travelled far to learn of Housemagic so he might better the farm. That he wished to introduce her to good people he had met outside the Empire. But she was always so busy, always she seemed to have things to do. "I do not envy your position, Miss Senna. You always run about so." > "Don't, Relad." He did not know the deeper meaning behind her words. He was too simple a man, not tempered by war or hardship in the same way many were. But he knew injustice when he witnessed it. He just also knew he had no power here, that any display of refusal would lead to his own death, and that he didn't believe she would have wanted that for him. Relad spent a few nights in his home, after having washed his hands of the "Crime of Unknowing" - apparantly simply having worked for her was enough for him to need to do labor for the Crown in the form of a mining run - Relad would take a deep breath. The axe would split the furnature he hand-made in his home into firewood. The blade would slit the throats of the livestock he could access, as he had never seen a soul upon the farm working save his own, or Miss Senna. He would take what little he owned that was not burned, leaving strewn about the floor whatever food or goods he could not carry. Relad would take his horse and ride as hard as he could out of Imperial lands. This place was a den of snakes. He would not feed the mouths that clamored for her death. The following nights are a blur to him. Travel, salt the meat in the saddlebags, rest under the moon, be pitied by kind folk, trade for directions. Aimless, wandering again, just like before. Relad, some weeks into his running, into his anxiety that the Empire would care to look for a runaway Serf who killed his own livestock, would warm his hands at a fire against a tree in the woods of a land he had never been. And the man who had worked the soil for the Empire shed tears, finally. And the man who had made a friend in Miss Senna allowed himself to mourn her loss, finally. And the man who saw the Empire chew up and swallow what kindness welcomed him into their walls felt bitterness, finally. And the man with no faith shared would find himself longing to find something to believe in, finally. And Relad would say what he wished he could have said one more time to Miss Senna, "Thank you for everything, Miss Senna. You prove again to be admirable, amazing, wonderful." "I am sorry I couldn't tell you how grateful I was. I am sorry I could not see the pain behind your gaze, or the danger you were in." > "I bought his steed with my own coin!!", -she had said. In her last moments. She tried to protect him, even then. And the man who had been named Relad Orison wept for what was lost, into the night. "You will not be forgotten. All I meet will know your story, what you did for me, the good woman you were, and how you were thanked by your Empire." "May the snakes eat their tails or poison the world, so be it. But I will not have part of it." So, in a mixture of hate, anguish, and loss, Relad would wake the next morning and continue to travel. Away from the Empire. Out of the den of vipers. Away from liars and kings and wormongers and princes. Despite all he carried, her memory bore down the hardest, and he found himself muttering as he rode. "...I hope you can rest now, Miss Senna. No more running about for you."