Private Tales The Legend's Heir

[Serafina]

Sera stared at him when he begun talking with wide eyes. He had offered up little about his past in their time together unless it had been to do with those who had hunted them and even then Sera had suspected he did so reluctantly. This offering caught her entirely off guard. Very slowly, as though she were afraid sudden movement might scare him off, she sat down beside him and listened. It was a much different tale to the one of her own upbringing though they were nowhere near rich like Violet had - was.

"I can see that..." she said softly when he stopped and she moved some of the veg around on her plate. It had been her father who had taught her the importance of not wasting food because some people went without. Though she had always suspected her father just didn't like to see waste in his kitchen. "How... did you get to be a general if that was where you were born? Whenever a servant got promoted to a footman or a valet it was a big thing where I came from. I've never heard of anyone going so high."

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin did not often think about his past, not so far back. Memories of his mother, his father, his sisters...they all seemed to distant now. Hazy, almost as if they belonged to another person. "I worked for it."

He mused cryptically.

"Every chance I got." The Bandit Chief straightened his shoulders as he spoke. "When I was old enough I worked in a tavern owned by a man with...influence."

He explained. "First as a kitchen boy, then a guard."

For a moment his face grew pensive.

"One night a man came to see my employer. He was a noble of some sort, but in debt, deeply so. He came to my employer for relief." Solgrin closed his, eyes, as if he could see the memory. "While there his debtors, competitors of my employer ambushed them. Tried to kill the Noble and my Boss at the same time."

His eyes opened, glancing towards Sera. "I killed them, and from there the Noble took me into his house."

"After that it was easier." He explained. "I just kept winning. Fights first, then battles, then within the Court. My name grew beyond my birth. Soon people didn't ask where I had come from, but where I was going."

 

[Serafina]

Sera sat enraptured by the story so much so that she forgot her plate.

It was a tale as old as time for those born in the lower levels of society. The type of tale that a father told his son when he realised that all he would amount to in life was a stable hand, or a mother to her daughter when she realised all she could hope to do in life was marry well. They were stories that gave you hope. Made you believe that there was more you just had to be in the right place at the right time and seize your chance when it came calling.

Was this her chance?

"Do you ever wonder what it might have been like if you had gone on just working in the tavern?" she asked softly.

 

[Solgrin]

"I would be dead." Solgrin said quietly. "One way or another."

There was no way around that, and he understood the irony of it.

It was the same fate that he was walking towards now. The same one that he had already accepted. "And I would have saved a lot of people a lot of trouble."

Solgrin mused quietly.

The Bandit Chief knew where the balance scales lay, how it sat. There was no question in his mind that he had been a blight on this world. Perhaps it would have been better to simply have died on the floor of that tavern. A knife in his side.

Many more people would have survived without him.

 

[Serafina]

"And a lot of people wouldn't be."

If Solgrin followed her line of sight and the nod of her head he would see she was referring to the band before him. Their numbers had dwindelled over the last year but there was still a small army here under his command. Enough to make most cities give pause and pay attention that was for sure. Each and every one of them would be dead without him. Whether it was from their own doing or fate itself.

"These people owe you everything, Sol. You sell yourself too short," she laughed softly at her own words. "I never thought I would be saying these things about you," she admitted and moved her food around the place some more. "But I can see it in every one of their faces."

 

[Solgrin]

For a few moments Solgrin stayed silent.

He knew exactly what Serafina was trying to do of course, and he couldn't blame her for even half a second. A smile pulled across his lips. Scoring his features for a few moments as he mused upon the happy thoughts instead of those that brought miseries.

Like everything else though, that fantasy was brought low by reality. "Fifty."

Perhaps more, a dozen at most.

"For ten thousand." The Bandit Chief shook his head. "They owe me everything."

He agreed. "For a cost that no one could pay."

That was why he had condemned himself. Why he had accepted his fate. An eternity within the abyss. With the tortures of those below.

"I have a debt to pay, Sera, and I am ready for it." He looked at her. Not a single hint of despair in his eyes.

 

[Serafina]

Sera raised her hand hesitantly as though she were about to pet a wild beast and not a man who had been in her bed more than once. She cupped his cheek when he didn't move away and drew her thumb over his stumbled jaw.

"We will all be judged when we finally go, but you don't have to rush to meet Lady Justice. Stay. We could do so much good together and not just for these people," he had already done good for a whole city. People listened where he went and it wasn't just out of fear. There was something about him that... commanded the room. And after a year with him, selfishly, Sera didn't know what she was going to do when he was gone.

 

[Solgrin]

"The decision is made." He said softly.

Solgrin had never really talked about it, not with anyone. As far as he had been concerned it was no ones business but his own. A thing that he did not need to burden others with. A weight that only he needed to bare until the end.

"It was made ten years ago." The Bandit Chief said softly. His hand coming up to envelope Serafina's. "And the result draws closer by day."

He could feel it drawing closer, had felt it now for years.

His healing was not a thing of nature, not something the gods had been blessed with. He had made this bargain to survive until he'd needed to, and that need was now running out.

 

[Serafina]

"I don't understand," she whispered and searched his eyes desperately for the answers. What decision? What decision couldn't be undone? She had all this magic now, it surely could be used for more than just to sear him from existence like he had intended.

"You could do such good. I could. I just need... I need you to help me figure out who to help," he had seen more of the world than she even knew existed. If he guided where she needed to be... Sera knew she was scraping the bottom of the barrel but she didn't want him to just give up.

"Please stay."

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin smiled sadly at her. "I never explained."

Perhaps that was on him. Though he had never really thought that anyone deserved an explanation of what he'd done, perhaps Serafina did.

He had take much from her, maybe everything. There was an argument to be said that he had freed her too, but he would not say it.

"I made a deal." Solgrin explained softly. "A bargain, that would make sure I would live to see my vengeance."

For a moment he paused. "Now I've broken that deal."

No revenge. No life.

 

[Serafina]

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

"No, that's not true. You're just... you're just..." she shook her head in disbelief. The idea of him dying just didn't make any sense to her. He just couldn't. She'd never even seen him with a scratch before and she had seen him go through avalanches and a rainstorm of arrows. He was telling her he was going to die and though he had for a while she was only just beginning to realise the truth of it.

"You can still have your vengeance, you're just suspending it until you help others first," it sounded weak even to her own ears but she just couldn't give up. Not now. Not when he had decided to help instead of kill. It seemed unfair and unjust.

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin smiled despite himself. It was a silly thing to say, and she knew it likely just as much as he did. Serafina did not know the world as much as he did, but she was smart. There was no doubt that she was grasping, reaching for something.

Yet it was not to be found. "It doesn't work like that."

The bandit Chief said softly.

"Not this time." Perhaps in the past it might have, perhaps he could have gone back and made some sort of argument. Not now thought. Not after so long, after what was supposed to have been so many deaths.

"I have some time yet." He assured her. "A year, maybe."

Perhaps longer, depending on how much he was hurt.

 

[Serafina]

A year. Was that it? How quickly had this past year gone and how much quicker would this new one pass her by? She had just started her life on her own terms with her future now in her hands and in the same stroke she was losing what had become a cornerstone of that life and the future she had seen. As ridiculous as it was.

"You can't make me fall in love with you then leave me," she pleaded in a heart-broken whisper. Because that was the crux of why she was finding it so difficult to let go. He had made her fall in love with him. Whether he had intended it or not she didn't know - nor did she want to know. What mattered was that if he died it would break her heart and she wouldn't get the future she had been hoping for.

 

[Solgrin]

He smiled a rueful smile.

What was he supposed to say to such a thing? What was he supposed to do? "I don't have a choice."

No, that had already been made.

The world they lived in was a small one, smaller than most might have thought it would actually be. Solgrin could not really deny it, not even if he wanted to. His lips thinned for a few moments, he reached out and softly touched her.

"It is what has to be." He told her. "For what I've done, for what has happened. For the rights of the world."

That was how it was meant to be. "You don't need me, Serafina."

He said softly.

"Not to be what you want to be." Not now.

 

[Serafina]

Sera leant into his hand and the tears begun to fall in a steady stream now.

"I don't need you Solgrin, I want you," her hand gripped the wrist of the hand that touched her cheek. She wished she could make him feel a little of what she felt but his reaction had her thinking he didn't share a part of it which only made things worse. Like a foolish little girl she was begging a man to fight the demons he had made his bargain with to stay and live some fantasy little life tucked up in the mountains.

"I... I have all this magic. If you thought it would destroy you maybe it can alter the bargain," somehow. It had to. It couldn't just be a force for destruction.

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin shook his head slowly. He knew why she was trying to fight it, why she was trying to bargain with him. It was human. It was normal. Serafina had not had the years that he did to come to terms with his fate, to accept it.

He had known this would happen.

It had been the only way for him to get what he wanted, the only way for him to catch up with the others. Back then it had been a necessity, now it seemed more like fate finally coming to completion. He could not, would not deny it.

"There are things more powerful in this world than magic." Solgrin said softly.

"We have to accept that." He had. "Or we'll find the consequences will be much worse."

The Bandit Chief offered cryptically.

 

[Serafina]

The tears fell quicker down her rosy cheeks as he gently continued to bat away her frivolous ideas of how she might save him. In her heart of hearts she knew there was nothing she could do but she just couldn't quite seem to let him die. The thought was abhorrent to her. With no other plan, no other avenue other than to quietly plead with no hope of anyone being able to answer it, Sera leaned forward and rested her forehead against his shoulder as she quietly sobbed.

Sera cried for him. For the life he had only just started to embark on but would only have a year of. She cried for herself and the resentment and anger that twisted up in the love she felt for him. If he had been planning to die all this time why had he made her fall in love so hard? She would have done better hating him.

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin said nothing.

There was nothing else to say. He had never lied to her about how long he would live. Had never even tried to. From the beginning he'd told her that he would be destined to die, that eventually she would be rid of him.

Now it was almost a nightmare to her.

A string of pity ran through him, something that he could not ignore. He had not meant for any of this, not now, not before. Yet fate rarely cared what one wanted. She plucked and prodded the way she pleased, setting forth her stage and letting the play go on.

That was how it was.

How it would be.

It was too late to change what Solgrin was, the bargain he'd made. Even with all the magic in the world. So all he could do was comfort her, hold her, and that was what he did.

 

[Serafina]

Sera cried until there were no more tears to cry. It left her feeling hollow and tired so she quietly excused herself and went to curl up inside the tent that had been set aside for him.

The buzz of activity from the rest of the camp woke her in the early dawn light and she gave a soft groan and wriggled back into the warm weight of the man against her back. Her fingers ran up his arms to tug them around her waist. It felt like once they stepped outside his death would be closer. In here... in here she could ignore it.

"Do we have to go?" she whispered.

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin lay still for a few seconds.

He wondered briefly about the kind of man that he was. All the things that he'd done, the misery he'd wrought and would still bring. It was who he was, what he'd become over the last few years. Such was a fact that he simply could not deny, no matter how much a part of himself wanted to.

A frown touched his lips. "We do."

He answered quietly.

"There are promises to fulfil." Oaths that he had yet to keep. Solgrin had failed so many times, had taken and taken all that he could. It was time that he gave back, time that he set things right. It was his turn now, and he would see it through until the very end.

Fingers gently curled on Serafina.

"There's time yet." He assured her. "A little while longer at least."

Though he knew the words would not be much of a consolation.

 

[Serafina]

"A little while," she whispered back. Sera wriggled closer against him and shut her eyes once more in the pretence of sleep. Even from the exhaustion of crying she hadn't managed to sleep much with her thoughts going round and round in her grief. He hadn't died yet but still she felt as though she had lost him last night. A soft sigh escaped her and she let her fingers wind up and down his forearms in a lazy gesture as they lay and listened to the sounds of men waking and breaking fast.

"If you could be anywhere in the world where would you be right now?" it was the kind of silly question she had asked Violet when they lay in bed late at night together unable to sleep. Back before a bandit had come and stolen them from their homes.

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin considered the question for a moment.

It was something he'd never really thought about. Dreams had always been out of reach, even when he'd been a boy. Always he had taken the path which would lead to survival, to life. It had never even occurred to him that he could wish for something else.

"The white cliffs of Arrath." He answered finally.

"It is a series of mountains, In the north of the steppes." He explained. "So high up that one can almost see Teth."

Solgrin wondered if that would even mean anything to Serafina, but the meaning was there. The Cliffs were a sheer dropoff to the sea, over a thousand meters that simply fell into the ocean. Rumor was that the gods themselves had carved them.

 

[Serafina]

Sera only know what Teth was because of one of the books in the library she had found. It had looked like one of the newest ones in there and so she'd been curious about it; new books had been hard to come by in her small provincial town. She was about to open her mouth and ask what attracted him about that when Maria poked her head through the flaps without so much as a knock. She glanced over the two curled together in the furs and half smirked before saying.

"We're nearly ready to go, time to drop the tents Sir. Einar is already on his warg," her lips twisted with concern for a brief moment and then she ducked out again. Sera sighed and with reluctance begun to wriggle back into her clothes.

"If that's where you want to go," she said finally as she was rebraiding her hair. "That's... that's where we'll go in the end," she made it sound like a promise as she leant forward and brushed her lips against his.

 

[Solgrin]

Solgrin kissed her softly, then nodded his head.

A good place to die. He thought quietly to himself. Better than I deserve.

No, what he deserved was a pit in an open field. A grave that gave no notice, perhaps even less than that. He frowned for a moment, and then gently swept himself upwards from the bedroll. It was time to go, time to keep the first of many promises.

Within just a few moments both Solgrin and Serafina found themselves dressed, dragged from the tent and brought forth into the open.

Just as Maria had said Einar was already sitting in his saddle, though he was the only one who found himself so. "Let's go then."

The Bandit Chief said as he trudged over towards his massive warg.

"Let's go get your daughter, old friend." He said to Einar, smiling, knowing that none of them knew his fate yet.

 

[Serafina]

Sera wandered over to own warg and gently patted the giant beasts neck. The slathering welp of a warg rolled its tongue over her face in greeting and begun making the crazed laugh like sound it did when it was happy. She couldn't help laughing too before giving the beast a good scratch.

"I missed you too," she smiled and then swung herself up into the saddle. To think how scared she had been of them when she had been first taken and now they let her walk among them like she was one of the pack. Accepted. Oddly, she didn't think she had ever felt this sense of belonging even when at home. That much have been a lie or she would never have been so happy there but perhaps the memories were too distant now to recall.

Other Bandits were mounting up and soon Einar had them moving at a break neck pace.