Private Tales A Quiet Conversation

[Edric]

Aniria - Eridia

Vel Anir was no longer safe for him.

Edric knew that. Knew that every time he returned he risked not just prison, but a fate far worse. His crimes were numerous and the authorities would like nothing more than to see him caught. By now he had lost count how many they had sent after him. A dozen? Two? He couldn't have said, but the last few months had made it perfectly clear just how dangerous coming home would be.

Trouble was, he didn't have much of a choice.

There was a root in Aniria, one connected to both he and Chas.

This time that root had traced itself to Eridia, a city which was less a home for the people and more of a Cathedral. Three hundred years ago before the Great Houses had outlawed the tenants of religion within Vel Anir, Eridia had been a place of worship. A distant reflection of Edric's home city of Vel Stratholm but more sacred. It was said that here in Eirdia Anirius claimed his Divinity.

During the time of House Rule, the city had been declared off limits. It's few denizens forcibly removed and the Cathedral sealed. For centuries only the caretakers had been allowed inside, tending to the ancient artworks and the hundreds of tombs which lay beneath it.

That seal of silence was broken when the Republic rose. As religious freedom was granted once more, the doors of Eridia were once again thrown open. The ancient practices of Anrius' religion lost, but not entirely forgotten. The Cathedral was repurposed, serving as a place of worship not just for the ancient herald of the Anirian people, but all faiths. Only the main chapel retaining it's original calling.

A place of worship, Edric could not help but notice the lack of Guardsmen patrolling the roads as he walked slowly towards the ever growing chapel. A thick beard covering his features, and his hair cut back in a way that Chasmine had said was unlike him. It was a meager disguise, but hopefully would last long enough for him to get what he needed.

Joining the throng of pilgrims upon the road, Edric did his best to blend into the city of worship.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

War awaited Kristen.

Increasingly her Ladyship of Vel Numera was being marked more by her absence than her presence in the quaint Pirian holding. Yet what could she do? Noble blood alone did not define her, but as well now the insignia pinned to her cloak, and heavy was its weight. But she did not choose to enroll into the Academy such that she could sit idly on what achievements she'd earned once graduated. From Salesia to Sharyrdaes and now to Cortos, ever did her Dreadlord insignia demand to be paid for anew. And this she would do.

Her orders to active service had arrived to her at Vel Numera, and she'd a date by which to report to Major Huntington in Vel Anir city for further instructions.

This date, by Kristen's reckoning, left her comfortable time for a particular visit, this to a place she had long held as a curiosity: Eridia. In the years between her kidnapping and her enrollment into the Academy, Kristen had been forced to hide her faith, her mother Josephine constantly worried for her on this account. Eridia, in all that time, had been as it was for centuries, but now in the age of the Republic the Cathedral City had been revitalized.

Kristen thought it an appropriate place to speak a powerful prayer to Aionus, beseeching the Holy Sentinel to grant his protection to her homeland in the coming war.

Presently, Kristen walked among the throng of pilgrims on the wide road rising to the Cathedral, the spiritual heart of Eridia (and, perhaps in a particular view, of Aniria entire). Her armor and her weapon she left at her accommodations in the city. She wore her cloak of Pirian red, a fresh high-collared doublet of the kind she'd grown fond, and pants and cleaned boots. Entering the Cathedral at Eridia was in no way as rigorous an event as entering the Pool of Eternity, but to the Cathedral, which had surely endured by the grace of many gods all these years, a high respect and reverence was nevertheless due.

And as she walked in the throng, one thing was for certain:

The warmth in her heart, as she saw that Aniria had not completely forsaken the gods.

Edric