In the swamp of Harloeg, Atharann stood true to that noble bravery shown only in action. Regardless of the man's ways and whether or not he and Ryheric ever saw eye to eye, he never hesitated to be there and fully present. This wasn't outstanding for Ath, it was instead the pattern Ry knew to expect of him. Trust. Matters of the soul. The man had a shell to Ryheric's perception; an outline of ravenous blood red. But the colour masked beneath was blue. This man lived for others, not himself. He had a strength of will devoted to giving his all. By life or death, he would act for his friends. No hesitation, no messing around. This was the source of his hunger. To have something to die for.
Winnie, like Ath, showed what she had demonstrated from the very start. That she would never back down. The fierce badger woman had been, in some secrecy, practicing her skills in a fight. In the most confronting ways possible, that training was put to the test. No words were ever needed with Winnie. Whether she kept sorrow or follies in her heart over social shuffling never mattered in the end. Like Ath, when the time came to put her money where her mouth was, she was there. She told Ryheric once that she would always be there. He didn't believe her, but his heart did. His heart sang where it should be smothered now in darkness.
For in Harloeg, Vahiy made himself known. If Ryheric was cursed, Vahiy was the manifestation.
At the meeting, he had told his closest friends everything for the first time. Gazakh and Vahiy the titan warlords. One a deserter warlord amassing a force of the best rebel raiders, the other a pasha rewarded with unholy gifts of the enemy. The twelve year old half-caste boy with grey eyes and a sword put into his hand - himself.
Most telling was the look in Winnie's eyes. For two years she saw and sought for signs in Ryheric of who he was, who he had been and just why they had found such trouble when Tarsorel had been captured by his old enemy. Only tidbits here and there did she find. But now she knew. As did those new to Ryheric's "clan" (a word Eirik used that to Ryheric, fit far better than anything formal or militaristic.) Dandy, Eirik, Sicarra. Ryheric knew Bryn - his most underrated scholarly friend - was listening from his sick bed upstairs.
Ultimately Harloeg was an ill-intended battlefield. They fought. The lost sword of Atharann's brother was found, Ryheric was sure the Vahiy intended to goad Atharann to his death with it. But more questions than answers were found.
...
In the meantime, Tarsorel, too, had shown colours Ryheric hoped not to see again - but by now, was wisened not to be surprised by them. Taupe, so close to that staining, terrible burgundy. So close to grey. So warm but ultimately cold, dry.
Ry made a request that was too firm, raised hackles in Tarsorel and was tragically moot in the end (did all great friendships not end in such pointless ways?) but at the time it was important. Tarsorel, abandoning experience and wisdom, flared to fight. Not the fight of an honourable man nor the company's shield. The fight instead done with insidious words intended to strip Ryheric's own security down to Tarsorel's level. This would be the last time, for Ryheric had suffered greatly at the hands of Tarsorel's misgivings. The man twisted his intentions, and Ryheric was out of forgiveness for it. He would leave the old soldier to these games, just like Silver and Scanie long ago. Both, Ryheric recalled, brushed with Tarsorel's paint at the time.
After Salin's rescue he had some foolish first-time (and perhaps only time) fantasies about lifting a daughter out of harm's way and sending her to a beaming mother, as though for a borrowed moment of time Salin was not Salin. But instead a child of his and Brynleigh's. Like a sign, the act to stop Salin running into the flames and also deliver her to her toddling destination was promptly scolded. Odd, but enough to snap him out of those unattainable notions. His name objected on her lips like the first words of the last page. Though in truth, that final chapter began the day he only wanted to show her a rose, and other fears of hers turned it all so sour.
As the haze of hope cleared to the starker realities, it became more obvious just how similar her pattern was to Tarsorel. People who lived by words they pretended to act by, but ultimately were consumed and scraped out, lost and dried out over the insidious coals of "safety". Pale, dry colours. Those who used him to improve their lives, while offering nothing to improve his. Pale taupe - so close to grey and that awful burgundy, and Coral - a fire's shade, a sunrise's shade... Too tinged with grey and bone to act on either, too pale to move. Both he loved, both warm shades in their ways, but they could not meet him. He could not hold himself wan for them any longer; or ever again. Lessons were learned, and Ryheric took lessons deeply to heart. For orange needed to dance.
He went into the hills she would never see with him, after both final meetings occurred on the same day, one after the other. Unable to find stillness or solace, he dug a large hole in the loamy clay and took the three sheep skins - and one bear skin for good measure - off Son of Mouse's saddle bags.
He was tired of looking at them empty at night in his camp, envisioning Lifweard and Mercan as though they could be "home". Love. Belonging. A shared path with those unassuming sheep skins at the centre, by hues of a fire. Children. Legacy? The three sheep skins worked soft enough on the underside for a lady's skin. Only to touch nothing, and make more weight for his good horse. Wasteful.
This was his own misjudgment just as he had been misjudged. It was never her desire, and thus it could not be his path. Though he rejoiced in the bittersweet notion that his path was so changeable that even such an unlikely (and doomed) ending could feel right. She preferred hers so sealed and imprisoned in contrast.
He buried the sheep skins. Then the cut bear skin, last.
Upon the grave, Son of Mouse watched Ryheric light four sticks like candles to watch them burn.
Blue, Red, Taupe and Coral.
"Farewell Geornak and Gazakh. And... Farewell my sweet misjudgments."
He filled the jagged scar on his face with charcoal so he would not see phantom colours of deceased hopes if he caught sight of his reflection again.
...
He stayed in the hills for some days before returning. Bloody repercussions of Harloeg awaited. As did brighter colours before his fate was done.
