ryheric

The night sky was pitch black. The moon looked white, a bright beacon high above in contrast. Far below, the sea breathed and snarled. The swell both a lull into complacence and a defiant beast; a legendary killer of men.

The bonfire's music drowned out all the rest. The fire was built like a tower. Upon the ruin by the sea they had come to, it was like a tower upon a tower. The fire had none of the sky's vastness, none of the sea's indecision. It did not have the woe of the stark, solitary moon.

Months before in the stone cell of a dungeon, Ryheric saved the last fragment of his decimated spirit by one obsession. The idea that, even if it killed him, he would end the life of Vahiy's puppet overseer, General Efedagon.

Now, he rode beside his nemesis. Both warriors equally cornered into the next mission. Equally despising it, for vastly different reasons.

The most bizarre development to Ryheric was his realisation he wanted Efedagon to live through this. He would even fight and bleed with him to see it so.

Planting time and harvest time brought everyone together.  The farms in Beringbourn were spread out and for most of the year the community spent the majority of their time on their own respective farms, they all came together for harvest and moved from farm to farm.  

I was happy never expecting or making promises.

This one dragged from me, felt important. Yet I do not care what becomes of me now. The stream was my fate; and now my currents carry something to spectacular, ferocious failure... Or success that will heal so much wrong, -- and also break me.  

Or... maybe it won't break me, and that would be even worse.

Like every battle before, and likely every battle that will come, the plan in place does not even survive the first few minutes before it needs adjusting.  When the roar makes the ground tremble and Emmawynn sees the warg chasing Gemmah toward her, she shifts her focus.  She shoots arrow after arrow into his flesh, causing him to stagger in anger, to pursue harder, to lash out in pain. 
 

Words, oh how conflicted Emmawynn felt about them.  Often she and Ryheric had talked about their purpose.  For understanding.  Yet oh how often they were used for other things.  Where she had grown up they had been political tools. She had seen them used often as weapons.  They could build someone up or destroy them.  On different occasions her own words had done both. 

At first sight

Far from Home

Water falls

Dark eyes and teardrops

burning copper skin.

At first sight

Leaned in to fear

Knew pain

Bowed and endured

What a beautiful name.

Khaki was the colour of Bree-land. Green, the colour for sleep or delusion, and beige yellows, dulled, sedately corrupted passions.

It was the type of place to lull those who stayed too long into a sense of trouble despite their luxury and wellbeing. People invented trouble here, and sometimes willed it into harmful reality. A side-effect of so much peace and, Ryheric figured, boredom.

Brynleigh was in Bree. She was even in the Prancing Pony, still. Ry knew it, but amusingly, the two seemed to keep missing one another. Sometimes, if word of mouth was to be believed, by mere moments. He knew now that the woman sought him in kind. It was only a matter of time...

Early one morning, just after the sun had risen, he came to the stables, thinking he might find her attending her chores there. Alas, the woman had either been by early, else she was attending horses elsewhere that day, or on some other errand.

The night-terrors plaguing him since Gondor had faded and peeled back since his visit with the strange Bree-woman and with Reviadir. They were not gone, but far rarer so that they were not a key feature of his life, privately, anymore. He knew when he was ready for further healing, he could find it.

The Great Eel Hunt was the crowning achievement of his new clan. The houses were underway. Slowly but surely, his people were learning one another and finding peace.

His people? Peace? Had he really done this?