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"So rustic."
Cassie's long ear twitched slightly at the familiar Elven words from the familiar Elven voice who spoke them but her eyes didn't shift. She tracked a small halfling woman dressed in green as she sprinted down the road to the Hamley soldiers. A bell had tolled a little while ago, presumably calling the natives of this village tasked with its defense. She smiled slightly at the Halfling's sense of focus and urgency, obvious despite the distance between them.
Shifting slightly on her wooden bench, at last Cassie let her eyes switch to the mail-clad Elf who'd just claimed a seat on the bench next to her. Outside the Roadhouse, four benches boxed in a nice, comfortable fire. She had a good view of a well on her right and a cattle pen on her left but at the moment her gaze was fixed on the blonde Elf who'd seemingly appeared out of nowhere to sit.
Ahlorial brushed stray strands of her blonde hair out of her face, the gesture achingly familiar given Cassie herself did it half a dozen times every hour. The other Elf's blue eyes tightened slightly when she noticed the scrutiny. "What?"
"So grumpy. You know, I bet you'd have an amazing smile if you remembered how."
Ahlorial's lips twitched slightly. "Do you really miss Dunwood so much, to keep coming back here?"
Cassie sighed and looked back over the view of Hamley, at the rangers or militia or whatever they were formed up and about to get on with drills. "I understand them." She trailed the still-callused palm of her hand across the rough wooden surface of the bench. "I've been them. They're not perfect but they're good folk. Don't know why you don't see that."
"They're not why you're here."
The flat affect ignored Cassie's remarks, annoying her. "Oh, and you know so much about why I'm here."
"I'm here for you."
"Yeah I know."
Glancing back, Cassie saw Ahlorial's expression was once again guarded, remote, approaching full on Elven frost. Such elegant posture, such sharply drawn criticism in the merest lowering of immaculate eyebrows, that slight firming of the jaw. Failed to measure up yet again, it seemed.
"They're a doomed people. Let them die."
"They're on their own, sure, but look at them." Cassie tilted her head and craned her neck to better take in the expanse of fortified log walls, the stepped up patrols. "The Empyreans might be pulling out but there's others to step up. Rangers. Outriders. Like that Halfing I saw run by."
"Hin."
"Whatever. It wasn't so different in Dunwood, you know. We had no Steinkreis back home so we were always on our own. We took care of it. Folk like this do too. Especially with help from them that know what it's like."
Ahlorial didn't say anything for a long moment, giving Cassie an opportunity to finish the stout she'd brought outside from the Roadhouse. Setting the bottle down, she hiccuped once. Another glance at the stern picture of Elven grace confirmed the disapproval she was so used to seeing. Offending her guardian's sensibilities had passed from a goal to avoid to just a perk of their relationship now.
"You're thinking about staying, aren't you."
Cassie sighed. "I am, yeah. For now."
"You traveled thousands of miles to reach Thain and you want to settle in the first farm village you see?"
"Because of visions," Cassie said, sighing at the familiar argument. "I traveled to Thain because Kelemvor asked me to. Because when a God asks you to do something, you don't say no. But where I want to live while I'm here's my business, isn't it?"
"Your people are your business."
"Which people are that, exactly? Elves? I grew up human, dress like a human, talk and think like they do. What makes you think Elves want to have anything to do with me? I can't even speak the language without an accent."
The Elven warrior's generally disapproving, bored expression finally slipped away entirely. It was replaced with an actual emotion; anger. The narrowed eyes were common but not the tight lines around those eyes, the firm jawline she knew but not the tensing of muscles in the cheeks.
"What makes you think our language is the only tie you might have to our people?"
Cassie frowned. "What other tie could I have? I've never been to Thain before. Spent all my life in Dunwood, save for I guess wherever my birth parents were before I was-"
She paused and felt a sudden chill go down her spine. Trite, overdone, until it was experienced personally. The implication was obvious now but...what? Nonsense. Turning to pin her guardian with a follow up, Cassie found the chair next to her was completely empty. As if the Elf had vanished into the air she'd come from.
Much as she always had come and gone.
Cassie turned back to the comforting familiarity of Hamley but her eyes were fixed on the horizon. South. Greenvale. Unless Feywood? No, the whole notion was nonsense. Dunwood was hundreds, thousands of miles. Why would...how?
"Kelemvor, what are you doing to me?"
She genuinely didn't know if she was disappointed or relieved that he didn't answer.
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25 months ago
Spider bite was one of Cassie's least favorite injuries. On the bright side, she was getting a lot of practice in treating it. She bent over the injured Outrider, felt the holy light filling her as it always did these days, and expressed it outwards through her fingertips into the wounded man.
Slowly, by inches, the puncture sealed over. Even for those blessed by the Gods, wounds couldn't just be washed away like they were nothing. Cassie could stem the flow of blood, help a recently broken bone set, draw ragged ends of flesh together with her hands alone. But she couldn't work miracles.
No, it took the blood of a young girl named Mira for miracles.
"Eh, not bad." The Outrider grimaced before flashing a briefly appreciative smile at her. He flexed his leg, stretched it, then hopped onto his feet. Another grimace swiftly concealed. It would be days before he was fully mended, but the man had has pride after all. "All better. Right as rain. You're not bad, Miss Weaver."
"Work of the Light, mister. Can't be taking the credit myself."
"No, it's fine work." The craggy face of a man who'd spent his life in the sun crinkled into an easy smile. "Sika's good too, don't get me wrong, she's been tending to ours for a long time. But, ah," he shuffled his feet awkwardly. "She always looks worse off. Hate seeing that on womanfolk, you know?"
Cassie found herself smiling in response. "Comes from following Ilmater, I think."
"Oh, one of them mainland Gods." He scratched his chin thoughtfully, then narrowed his eyes slightly as he focused on her. "And you?"
"Me?"
"Who do you follow? Another mainland God?"
The question surprised her. Made her straighten up, brush her hands off on her skirts as she considered the question. This wasn't the first time she'd treated this particular Outrider for wounds. Had she really not called on Kelemvor in all that time, for them to have had that conversation already?
When was the last time she'd talked about Kelemvor? Explained him as the Lord of the Dead and Judge of the Damned? When was the last time she'd even called upon him by name?
"Who do you follow?" Cassie asked instead, ducking the question while her mind scrambled for insight.
"Me?" the Outrider laughed. "I'm a simple man, Miss Weaver. Andarus is good enough for me. But the world's not simple, is it. I know the elves, like them in the Feywood, they follow their own God. Dwarves too. Same with gnomes, I think. But there's more than Gods too, Miss Weaver. I've got a sun for Andarus up in the front 40 acres of my family's home, sure. But the back 40 is watched over by an idol of Leima. She's taken good care of us for as long as we can remember. And I don't know a farmer who doesn't offer up a little something to F'tarek or Aarderak to keep an early frost away, or a little something more to Enthaet if the soil's not doing so good."
The blonde elf shook her head, finding herself seemingly further away from answers than ever. Finally, Cassie heaved a sigh and forced a smile to conceal her inner turmoil. "Light by any other name's still Light when it helps you see, I reckon. Maybe the name I call, the name that called me, maybe that don't matter so much out here. It's what I ask for, and what I'm given when I do. That's what matters."
"Good enough for me," the Outrider said, as he rose to his feet beside her. "I'm Ian, by the way. Ian Bauer. You should come by my family farm sometime. A good meal and some good company's the least I can do to say thanks for the healing."
"Your family won't be bothered by the, ah," Cassie deliberately swept her long blonde hair back over her shoulders, highlighting the tips of her long elven ears.
Ian shrugged. "Oh, some might. But you've been around here for a while, Miss Weaver, and Hamley folk haven't driven you off yet. I don't expect my kin will either. At least this way, you'll be promised some of the best food you've had in a year. I guarantee."
Cassie watched the Outrider walk off, grateful suddenly for his departure. The invitation was lovely, and all the more so because of how rare such an invitation was in these parts. She'd spilled blood beside Hamely folk and healed theirs plenty. But an elf was an elf. And these people had a long, bad history with elves. So the mixed reception Ian mentioned didn't surprise her.
What did surprise her...
She raised one hand and willed the Light to fill it, to spill out of her skin the way it always had when she invoked Kelemvor. ...And nothing happened. Cassie frowned slightly, thinking it through, before her expression cleared. No, she hadn't mentioned the name of the Lord of the Dead in her prayers but she had prayed before working each miracle for these people.
"As the Light wills," Cassie whispered. This time, she held up her hand and willed nothing. Only opened herself to seeing whatever the Light might show her. And the Light answered, blooming like an opening flower bud, radiance shining forth in a halo around her fingers.
The elf stared at her glowing hand for many long minutes, wishing she knew what it all meant...
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20 months ago
The cool air outside the Bauer homestead was welcome on Cassie's heated skin. She spilled out the spent dishwater from the washbasin and set it aside for a moment. A minute or two could be spent out here, surely, before her absence was noticed.
"I spoke with Tommy," Ian said from behind her. The much bigger man stepped out onto the back porch and leaned against the railing beside her. As always, Cassie was conscious her head didn't quite meet his shoulder. And, as always, his much greater size felt comforting now that she knew him better.
"You didn't need to," Cassie said.
"Hamley folk don't much like elves," the Outrider sighed. "But that's for reasons of history, mostly. Tommy's never been wronged by an elf. Andarus wept, you're the only elf he's ever met! You'd think he'd know better."
"Your son grew up with other Hamley sons, Ian." Cassie lay a comforting hand over his arm and leaned up against him, enjoying the weight and solidity of his frame beside her. "Hating elves is something they can share in common. Nothing can make two people tighter, faster, than giving them a third person to go up against."
The Outrider made a hurmphing sound in his throat before reaching into a pocket and producing his pipe. Neither of them spoke while he filled the bowl from the leather pouch where he kept his tobacco. Cassie took a cedar splinter and lit it from the outside lantern before extending it to the pipe, which Ian obligingly held out for her. Once he had a good smolder going, the two relaxed back into companionable silence.
"It's easy to forget, you know," he finally said, conversational in tone.
"What, me being 'elfy'?" Cassie asked, waggling her eyebrows at him playfully.
"You being, well, older." The Outrider looked briefly uncomfortable, and all the more so as her expression turned even more amused. "You look younger than me, you know. But I suppose you've seen all this sort of thing before."
"I have." Cassie's smile faded and she looked away from him, turning her gaze to what she could see of the Bauer farmlands as the sun set and night settled over Hamley. "Several times, actually. I barely remember my Ma and Pa, you know, for all they adopted me in their twenties and lived to their sixties. My brothers and sisters, their human children, they're the ones who mostly raised me. My nieces and nephews put up with me in my awkward teenage years."
"And here you are, doing it again." Ian chuckled and shook his head, half admiringly, half in puzzlement. "I wonder why you bother with us sometimes."
"You're my kind of people," Cassie said, still looking at the crops and the great forest far beyond. "I've spent enough time around other elves now to know that. I can't see myself ever being a part of their society, Ian. Even if I wanted to, they wouldn't. I talk too fast. Think too fast. Think too short-term. I'm not patient enough. Not reverent enough, or I'm too reverent, or I'm reverent about the wrong things."
"Damned if you do, damned if you don't."
Cassie's answer was to reach an arm around Ian's waist and pull him toward her a bit more firmly. Pressed up against his side, she inhaled the heady scents of pipesmoke, leather, horse and soil that lingered on the farmer-turned-Outrider. Ian had the vibrancy of a man in his prime, past the first bloom of youth, old enough to have a son nearly grown, but still young enough to have his full measure of strength and health.
Nathan had been much the same, though. Her first love. They'd fallen for each other in their youths and he'd courted her, until he'd outgrown her. Decades later, she'd finally persuaded him to marry her but they'd only had a decade together before he passed.
She might only have a decade with Ian too. Thain was a hard land and Outriders lived a hard life.
"Story of my life," Cassie said at last, answering him and her at the same time.
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14 Months Ago
"Figured I'd find you here."
Cassie didn't lift her head from her silent prayers but the voice still intruded. He intruded. This was sacred ground and she'd spent hours caught up in its holy presence. Buoyed by reverence. Communing with something higher and greater than herself. A presence that knew her and loved her. Once she would have named that Kelemvor but the God who'd chosen her hadn't spoken to her in years now. Maybe he never would again. Maybe she didn't need him to.
She knew what she needed.
Ian Bauer, Outrider and farmer, came up from behind and stepped around the benches until he found a seat right next to her. The two sat in the Abandoned Temple in Hamley for a time. Cassie finally sighed, well aware she'd lost the holy meditative state she'd enjoyed and wasn't going to get it back for as long as Ian was around.
"How are your friends?" she asked, at last breaking the silence.
Ian shrugged. "Fine. Gear's all turned in. Horses rubbed down and fed. Everyone's gone to their homes. No one seems much inclined to be sociable, which is all well and good if you ask me."
"I suppose so." Cassie leaned back on her hands, wishing the benches had actual back support. "Six months of work, gone in an afternoon. A year, really, what with planting coming up."
"A year for what?"
Cassie's laugh was hard, sharp, and dissonant in this peaceful place. She regretted it instantly. Instead of answering immediately, she rubbed her palms across the fabric of her skirt, using the wool to wick away the moisture her anxiety had caused. Then she cleared her throat, shifted in her seat and looked towards the altar and the light shining in shafts down upon it. Just a few seconds was all it took to get her equilibrium back.
"I frightened them today, Ian. I frightened you, didn't I." That wasn't a question. "Folks in these parts were getting used to me. Slowly. Progress measured in inches, but progress. I'm an elf, sure, but I dress like them. Talk like them. I don't talk about things their neighbors wouldn't. Bit by bit, I become just another woman here in Hamley."
"You'll never be just another woman here, Cassie."
She smiled without looking at Ian, hearing the warmth she knew she'd see in his eyes. "I'm grateful you think so. But I'm old enough to know how humans are. How this will go. Until now, I was that crazy elf who Ian Bauer built that little cottage for. The one with a gift for healing wounds and mending folk no matter what their troubles are. I might be small and strange but at least I'm harmless, or was."
Ian's hand went to her knee. One of hers covered the back of his. As always, she reveled in the heat in him, the strength in that hand, the strength in the heart it belonged to.
"What else can you do?" Ian asked, his voice quietly mild. Deceptively so. She could feel his heart but that voice told her that he was worried he wouldn't like the answers.
"I'm not a Sorcerer, Ian. But I can do more than heal. I can call fire, obviously. You saw that back in the Abdumbral Woods. I can do even more against the undead, thanks to the Light. My prayers can give strength, speed, stamina to those who need it. If I think to, I can grant a blessing of sight to see in the darkness or see what's concealed, or conceal a friend from the eyes of what hunts them." Cassie closed her eyes as she leaned against the much taller man's shoulder. "There's a dozen things I can do, Ian. But only one thing I would do."
"What's that then?" came his comforting rumble of a voice.
"Protect the people of Hamley." She opened her eyes and turned her head to look into his. "Your folk are my folk now. Ain't nothing I wouldn't do for them."
"Might take some a bit of time to come to peace with that," Ian said, his low voice soft with their faces just inches apart.
"Six months," Cassie answered. "Or, with planting coming up, maybe a year. That long of me acting neighborly, healing what I can of what ails them, spending time around them. That long before they begin to relax, even a little. I know, Ian. This isn't the first time."
"Don't know how you put up with it."
"This is the price I pay for loving humans," Cassie said, her voice gentle. And she scooted up a bit and kissed him. Ian's response held none of the reserve she'd sensed moments ago, at least. "You're worth it," she added when their lips parted.
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10 months ago
"He won't marry you."
"You don't know that," Cassie answered, provoked despite herself. So she raised her rapier into a guard position and said "Again."
Her guardian, Ahlorial, acknowledged the raised sword more than the actual command. The two elves immediately exchanged a dozen rapid blows in seconds. Cassie pressed the much better fighter and actually put the other elf on the defensive for a time. Because with the metallic clamor of blade-on-blade, she couldn't hear the shouting from inside the Baur home. Because as long as she fought, she had an outlet for her anger that wouldn't hurt the people she loved.
At last, Ahlorial spun her sword in some elaborate spin and dipped and twisted her wrist, and suddenly Cassie's sword was flung to the ground. The point of the other elf's rapier nudged Cassie's neck gently, teasingly really, matching the amusement in Ahlorial's expression. Once Cassie nodded, the two broke apart.
"No man will choose you over their child." Ahlorial's words were blunt and sharp at the same time, much like the elf herself. Her refusal to learn much less use Common accented the point. As if Elvish were the only language good enough to fight with for the warrior.
"Tommy's a grown man now," Cassie answered, retrieving her rapier from the ground. "About to start his own household. Once Ian and I help him finish up his house, he'll be asking Kenna to marry him. A couple of years from now, I'll help them with clothes and minding for their babies. I'll soften them up slowly, you can be sure, but they'll soften." Her lips twisted. "I'm patient enough for it."
"You will never be his mother." Ahlorial raised her rapier, signaling another bout to begin. "Even if you were human, he would resent you for replacing his dead mother. If you press this, you'll make the boy hate his father too."
"Ian loves Tommy." Cassie raised her own rapier and once more the two fenced, a bit more leisurely, a bit more selectively. "Loving me too doesn't change that." Her own use of Elvish was one more weapon in the conflict between them.
"You know better."
Cassie grimaced because she didn't actually have a rebuttal. She was being an optimist about all this. "I've never-" no good Elvish word so she switched back to Common, "competed with Tommy. I've never complained about, or even minded, the time they spend together without me."
"That doesn't matter."
Suddenly furious, Cassie once more went on the offensive, lashing out with the first in a series of twelve decisive strikes. Ahlorial robbed the combination of its power by stepping inside Cassie's reach on the first swing and catching her wrist. With an angry shake of her own head, the elven warrior sheathed her weapon and pried the blade from her student's hand. Then she walked to the water barrel and measured out refreshment into two cups.
All the while, father and son could be heard shouting from inside the house.
"I'm losing him," Cassie murmured as she accepted the mug from Ahlorial.
The other elf eyed her appraisingly. Then, miraculously, the warrior's face softened into sympathy. "Loss is mortal. You are more than that. Mourning them is mourning the death of the leaves in autumn. You are no leaf, Cassie. You are the tree. Be of the forest the way you should have been. Spread your branches to the sun with your own kind instead of only looking to the soil where the dead fall."
Tears burned in Cassie's eyes. "But I love him."
"As you loved Daniel. You had ten years with him, did you not? You won't have even that much with this one." Ahlorial took another step closer and reached out with one hand, gently stroking Cassie's cheek. "Let us leave this place, beloved. You are meant for far more than these people. You will find happiness, I promise, if you follow the path set before you."
"'The only path I seek is one wide enough for two'." Cassie's quote was sincere and she saw flickers of grief and resignation in the eyes of her guardian.
"I fear you won't find it with him. But you will always find it with me. I am here for you, Cassie Weaver."
The front door of the Bauer home banged open, drawing Cassie's attention from where she stood. Stepping away from Ian's practice circle, she watched Tommy saddling up his horse in preparation for a rapid exit. She sighed and looked back to Ahlorial.
Only to find the elf had vanished. As usual. With a sigh, Cassie sheathed her rapier back in its scabbard and stored it before heading inside to comfort Ian. Well, to offer comfort. There was little hope her words or deeds could cover the hurt caused by a son's rejection of their father.
But as long as there was life in them both, she would try.
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6 months ago
There were stories and songs at the Bonfire of Evermorne, as they had been the last couple of years. Cassie still remembered the first one she'd been at, still a foreigner then and a barely tolerated one at that. She'd hoped this time around, enough Hamleyfolk would know her face and name that her joining in would be welcome. It'd been a hard winter and the famine of the past year had been tough on everyone. The coin she'd earned in her adventuring days had made up some of the shortfall but when Hamley's short on food, everywhere is short on food.
So she'd really looked forward to an end-of-winter celebration. Especially with Ian Bauer. They'd had some rough times in the past months, especially with his son Tommy moving out and refusing to visit if there was any chance Cassie might be visiting too. She bore it with grace and empathy and understanding, as she bore every slight and insult she'd received in Hamley. Hopefully the spring would give them another opportunity to mend things, especially if Ian proposed marriage as she suspected he might.
Those were her hopes. Until Dolina, Ian's sister, turned up. The two had an uneasy friendship over the past year or so, mostly enjoying each other's company in private and Cassie respectfully not showing much familiarity towards Dolina in public since the woman's in-laws were one of those families that especially didn't like elves. Seeing Dolina here at the Bonfire and being approached by her was a nice surprise, at first.
Then Cassie read the other woman's face and realized she carried bad news. Sure enough, Dolina handed her a folded up letter and said "This is from Ian. I'm sorry, sweetie." Without further pause, Cassie unfolded the letter and set herself to reading through the Outrider's shaky handwriting.
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Cassie reread the note, then crumpled it up in one hand. When she was younger, she saved every precious note and letter she'd ever received. Especially those from people who were no longer alive, like her Ma and Pa. But this was nothing she wanted to keep. Cassie was young for an elf but she'd had a long time still to live inside her skin, coming to know who she was and what mattered to her. There was no version of her she could imagine that could possibly want to keep a letter like this.
"Thank you," Cassie said to Dolina, feeling too much to be anything other than polite.
"If there's anything you need-"
"We're friends for as long as you like, Dolina." Cassie forced a smile but had the good sense not to embrace the other woman, in case the in-laws were watching. "Always."
Embarrassed and uncomfortable, the other woman withdrew and returned to the bonfire. Cassie stared at the flames from some distance away, hearing the songs and stories being shared. Present but not a part of it. Never a part of any of it. Why the hells was she still here? Among people like this. Humans who treated her like this.
Who's to say the last words you'll hear When you part with your boys on the road? You'd best hope those last words are good ones. Because the last time's a time you don't know.
That song. Part Not in Anger. Cassie's eyes burned again, tears and fury. For a moment, she tried to make herself sing along but her throat was squeezed tight. The grief wouldn't let a sound come out. And, truth was, she didn't even need to try. No one was looking at her. No one cared if she sang along with them. No one wanted her here.
Who's to say the last words you'll speak When you part with your girls for the night? You'd best hope those last words are good ones. Don't waste them on anger or spite.
Fine, fine words. What were her last words, anyway? To Ian? Yesterday morning, when they'd parted so he could go on patrol with the Outriders? Cassie couldn't remember clearly. The image was there but no sound. Like a painting in her mind. Permanent but superficial. She remembered the ache in his eyes, though. The ache for her, she'd thought. Was it a lie?
End each evening in Hamley proper. For you don't know how long you've got. So let's raise our glasses, to our lads and our lasses And settle the scores that we've fought.
Cassie breathed, in and out, while the people began to scatter and clear out. The Bonfire of Evermorne still smoldered as it would for the remainder of the night. Come tomorrow, its ashes would mark a day of fasting and prayer to Andarus and the other powers in Thain. She knew exactly how she would spend that day. Prayer was what she needed. She hadn't thought of Kelemvor in...what, weeks? Months? But the Light within and without was always with her now.
Only the Light would never leave her. Never abandon her. Never fail her.
Slowly, she approached the Bonfire of Evermorne with the crumpled letter held up. One of the rites of Hamley, observed every year on this day, was that regrets were to be fed to the fire. Peace made, broken relationships mended. That Ian had done this, on today of all days, didn't escape her attention. There would be no resurrection of their romance.
But there could be an end to regret, at least. Cassie dropped Ian's note into the fire. She watched the heat from the embers catch it aflame. Briefly, it flared with a night-defying light. Much as the two of them had. And then the flame was gone, just as their relationship was. So brief and short. Even in a human lifespan, most of two years was hardly anything. An afterthought. In an elven lifespan, how much more so. A century from now, would she even remember Ian's name much less his face?
Cassie didn't leave until the heat from the Bonfire had finally dried all her tears.
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3 Months Ago
She still lived in the cottage that Ian Bauer built. Oh, Cassie had the money to move if she wanted to. But this was her home. Every beam laid, every wall stood up with a man's love behind it. If a father's love had ultimately overcome a would-be husband's love, it didn't make it less true. Cassie had uncharitably ignored that for a time, after their breakup, but she'd had enough distance now to think about the good times instead of the bad.
It wasn't good or bad times she was thinking about this morning, though. When the sun rose, Cassie rose too and the first thing she always did was greet the dawn. Typically by stepping outside and kneeling on her porch, head bent, in prayer. Greeting the Light as the sun's light smiled down upon her.
This morning, hoofbeats intruded on her silent reverie. Cassie opened her eyes when she realized their pattern led them straight to her home. Standing, she stepped off the porch and hiked her skirt a little so the long grass wouldn't get it wet before the sun had time to dry the night's dew from it. Approaching from the heart of Hamley came a horse and rider. And for once, Cassie did not appreciate the sheer sharpness of elven eyesight.
That was Tommy Bauer riding for her and it'd still take him a minute or two before he was close enough to speak with. Cassie's stomach twisted inside, as she thought of the man she loved and the son that had parted them. A son who'd barely said a dozen words to her in all her time in Hamley. As he neared, she could see more clearly how he'd grown into manhood fully. His face had finally lost most of the residual fat of youth, holding its adult shape now.
"Cassie," he said, as he pulled up close enough to speak with. Walking his horse slowly forward, Tommy didn't dismount. He just...looked at her.
"Tommy," she answered him politely, still warmed by the Light in her prayers, still unsure what this was all about.
"It's Pa," he said at last, reluctant. Unwilling. He could barely stand to look at her.
"Ian sent you to...talk to me?" Cassie asked, bewildered.
"Come on." With the nudge of a heel, his well trained horse pivoted to point back the way they'd come. Ian reached out a hand and Cassie realized the invitation for what it was. Taking it, she let herself be lifted straight off the ground and settled into a seat just behind him. Like Ian, Tommy was taller than her, broader of shoulder, strong in limb. Warm, the way Ian had been.
At once, they rode for the town proper. Cassie held on, feeling the wind rush by, feeling the inside of her equally whipped and rushed about. She'd barely seen Ian in the few months since the Bonfire. Why would he ask for her? Why would he send Tommy of all people to get her?
They rode up on Fort Bennars in no time at all. Hamely wasn't that big, after all. Instead of riding to tie up his horse, Tommy stopped by the doors to the Outrider fortress and said "Go on inside, I'll be along in a minute."
Perplexed, Cassie slipped off the horse and watched the stony-faced young man ride away. Glancing over at the Outrider posted to watch the exterior of Fort Bennars, she saw...what, sympathy on the woman's face? Compassion? More confused than ever, Cassie pressed the doors open and headed on in.
The interior was cold, compared to the warming morning outside. Familiar stone halls and old, badly scuffed oak flooring reminded her of all the other times she'd paid housecalls on the Outriders. Usually when someone was hurt or sick. ...Was that what was going on now? No, an Outrider caught sight of her and beckoned her to follow him past the stairs leading to the common sleeping area, where Outriders usually convalesced. What was back here? The dining hall? ...No...
Cassie's heart felt like it leapt into her throat as the Outrider led her through the far door, through the unfinished interior beyond leading to the old storerooms in back. It was colder here still. No fires were ever lit for warmth. It made the best place to put the dead, until family came to claim them.
...And there he was.
"His patrol came back last night," the Outsider escort said, wringing his hands together and sounding nervous and sorry at the same time. "Spiders, you know how it is. They fought them off, the Outriders did. Killed dozens of them, killed the ambush but not before the Adlina-bedamned spiders got him."
Cassie looked upon the body where it lay on the ground. That's what it was now. The body. Ian wasn't there anymore, she could tell that by a single look. Someone had the decency to close his eyes at least. His face was unmarred and his cloak was mercifully wrapped around his midsection. She could pretend he was asleep, if she wanted to, for a little while.
"We told his boy Tommy already," the Outrider said, filling the silence with even more unnecessary conversation. "Guess he came to find you. Figured you should know, seeing how close you two were. I'm...I'm sorry, Miss Weaver, for what's happened here."
She waved him off with a single palm. Cassie heard his shuffling steps for a few moments more before they finally shuffled away, leaving her alone with her dead. Finally at peace, Cassie knelt on the floor beside Ian's body and gently embraced him, lifting him into her lap.
"I don't know if Kelemvor judges your soul or not, Ian," Cassie whispered to the body. "I grew up knowing he did but Thain's not like Dunwood. If he does, I pray he gives you a better life than you had in this one. And if he doesn't, then let the Light keep you and give you peace. You deserve it."
"You deserve all of it." Tears dripped onto his handsome, still face. "I wish we'd had more time. Ten years, I had with Daniel. I didn't even get two with you. And it's not enough."
"Oh Ian..."
Cassie held the man she loved and wept. Until her tears ran out and her heart grew hollow from the effort of grieving. When Tommy at last found her, she looked up at him with lost eyes and saw similar pain in his own. For the first time, they embraced.
Ian was dead. But she was alive. And there was much to do before the man she loved could be laid to rest.
Registered Member #25678
Joined: 10:05:04 pm GMT 01/15/23
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A Week Ago
"You off then?"
Cassie turned at the question, controlling her horse with old reflexes. She hadn't spent much time on them in the past year or so, and she fully expected to have a sore bottom by the time she reached Steinkreis, but the skill was still there. Unfading, just as she was.
Below, on the road, stood Tommy Bauer. Ian's son was nearly twenty now, married, and expecting his first child by harvest time. The thought made her smile. Tommy made her smile, for all that he'd never smiled at her.
He didn't look angry either, and that was an improvement.
"I am. Did you need something from the Kreis? I don't mind bringing back whatever you'd like."
Tommy's reflexive grimace brought a laugh from her and he self-consciously smiled. "The day I need anything from the Kreis is the day the sun freezes over. No, I just wanted to...wish you well."
"Oh!" Surprised, Cassie searched for words and finally settled on "Thank you?"
"Don't get me wrong, Hamley needs elves even less than I need the Kreis." He gave her a considering look. "Maybe Hamley could use you, though. You're coming back?"
"I'm coming back," she echoed, astonishment replacing surprise. At last, she managed a wan smile and shrugged. "This is home to me. I don't know if you know this but I've been over most of Thain, at one time or another. From Greenvale to Craggen Village, from the Watch to the Wastes. In all that land, all those people, this is the place that's home to me. And your family," she added carefully, "will always be family to me too. Anything you need."
"Not looking for charity," Tommy said, his expression flashing to stern disapproval. He relented a moment later. "Enthalla is in two months time. Pa, and Ma when she was alive, they always circled the barn, sang the songs and made an offering with my aunts and uncles and their families. Since we moved back into Pa's place, we were planning on hosting Enthalla for the Bauers hereabouts."
She stared in incomprehension, controlling her energetic mount's shuffling with strategic squeezes of her legs and heels. "I remember," Cassie said, her voice soft in the morning air. "I was there for the last one."
Tommy shuffled himself now, cleared his throat and dropped his eyes. "Well, I'd like you to be there for this one coming up. If you're back from the Kreis by then." Truly astonished, Cassie found herself speechless. Tommy finally looked up, caught her expression and rolled his eyes. "Aunt Dolina asked me to invite you. She-we liked your singing last year. Do you have plans for Enthalla?"
She wordlessly shook her head.
"Now you do. Come before sundown, same as always."
Message delivered, Tommy huffed once and turned to leave. Cassie opened her mouth several times, wanting to thank him. Wanting to ask if she should bring anything. Wanting... something he didn't want yet. This new truce between them was as fragile as first frost on the nearby pond. Anything she said risked breaking it.
So he left, having said what he came to say. Cassie watched him until he turned the corner. Then she cast her gaze eastward, towards Hamley's gates. Towards the road south to the Kreis.
But she didn't leave. Not quite yet. Instead, she took in the town. The people, the humans with their mothers and fathers and children going about their lives. An elf sat on a horse, right in their midst. And this sparked no looks, no conversation, no changes in direction.
Cassie watched the people here treat her like no one different than their own.
"Light, I never thought I would see the day," she murmured to herself. A lie. Cassie knew time would inevitably soften the people to her. But this was the first time she felt it. Was warmed by it.
Hamley was home. The Bauers were still home. Her enigmatic guardian Ahlorial still hinted at a mysterious purpose for their presence on the island. A future full of vague significance. And Cassie didn't care because her present was full of real connection.
"The payment I get for loving humans," she said aloud, again to herself. Then Cassie set her heels to the horse and they were underway. At the gates, the town militia opened them on her approach. No question, no suspicion, no dirty looks.
[ The Island of Thain ]
Cassie Weaver
